


A New Year...and McGillop drank (most) of his beer.

by ncruuk



Series: Festive Season Three - shot [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncruuk/pseuds/ncruuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's New Year's Day and neither Kate, Osgood or McGillop have had the day start quite like they planned when they'd wished each other 'Happy New Year' back in December, before they went their separate ways.  But the day proves to be educational for McGillop, and he's not the only one....</p><p>[This could stand alone, but it is intended to be read as a continuation of my two part Christmas Series that can now be found through the Series Link on this story.  All three stories are intended to provide insight/background to my 'headcanon' for Kate and Osgood in all my stories, most significantly 'Code Word Classified: Gallifrey' [available via my author page here]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Year...and McGillop drank (most) of his beer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you in advance for taking on this rather long read, I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Everything happens in one day - italic sections are 'flashbacks' to earlier in that day and are sequential. [Therefore, in theory, you could scroll through the text reading the italics sections in order, then return to the top and read all the other sections in order, giving you the day as it happened. But please try it as written first?]
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy....

It was easy to forget, especially when she’d spent most of the week leading up to the festive break dealing with Whitehall, the Army and some rather interesting dollops of sentient goo, that Kate Stewart was a mother.  It was almost impossible to imagine that, not only was she a mother, but that the 6’ 5” Gordon ‘Gordy’ Lethbridge-Stewart had once been a tiny baby and that Kate, raising him on her own, had therefore coped with everything from dirty nappies to chicken pox via sleepless nights, teething and temper tantrums.

 

Almost.

 

In fact, right now, McGillop was worried that he would wake up and this would be a dream. A very strange, unexpected dream in which two parts of his life that he tried so very, very hard to keep separate had actually twisted together.

 

“McGillop?”

 

“Yes Boss?” he asked, dry mouthed, having discovered that his pint glass was empty and Osgood wasn’t yet back from the bar.

 

“You’re not dreaming.”

 

“No Boss.”

 

“No.”  Kate grinned, knowing what he was now thinking, “this isn’t a UNIT event either.”

 

“Yes Boss...I mean, No Boss, I…”  Running his finger inside his collar, he felt like he was being choked by a non-existent tie.

 

“...look like you need to drink your pint,” suggested Osgood, appearing just in time and holding the glass of London Pride in front of his nose, hoping he’d take the hint and carefully extract the glass from her fingers, enabling her to continue to her seat carrying the two pints of IPA for her and Kate.

 

“Thanks…” Grateful for the arrival of his friend, he took the glass and took a healthy gulp.

 

“Thirsty?” asked Osgood, amused at her friend’s reaction, although she could understand why he was feeling like he was in some weird twilight zone.  As she put Kate’s pint down on the table, she had to admit, this wasn’t quite how she’d expected their New Year’s Day walk to finish, but then she hadn’t entirely expected to have a New Year’s Day walk in the first place....

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


_ “How’s Gordy?” asked Osgood as Kate came back into the kitchen. _

 

_ “He’ll survive,” said Kate, collecting her coffee mug from where she’d left it on the table and leaning back against the counter, cradling the still steaming mug in front of her face, “he’s not actually ill…” _

 

_ “Just learning not to go drinking with Troop?” guessed Osgood, familiar with how a night out with Max’s friends in the UNIT Troop squad ended for the inexperienced or overconfident. _

 

_ “Something like that,” agreed Kate, taking a sip of her coffee, “so, we have the day to ourselves…” _

 

_ “We do?” Osgood could understand why their plans for the day would no longer include Gordy, but she’d still been expecting Max to be about. _

 

_ “For letting Gordy get into the state, Maximilian will be looking after him and cleaning the bathroom.  He will not be going out today.” _

 

_ “That seems…” Osgood took another sip of her own coffee whilst she tried to work out exactly how she wanted to express her point, “...to suggest that Max was forgetting he’s not at the Tower?” _

 

_ “He may be 26, but I’m still his mother,” agreed Kate, smirking.  “So we have the day to ourselves, any ideas?” _

 

_ “I’m guessing you’d like to go out somewhere?” suggested Osgood, liking the idea of Kate all to herself, with no family distractions. _

 

_ “Probably best.” Kate drained her coffee mug and moved over to put it in the sink, meaning she was now on the same side of the kitchen as her girlfriend. _

 

_ “It’s quite nice out, fancy a walk on the Heath?” As she asked the question, Osgood also moved over to the sink and, following Kate’s example, put her now empty coffee mug in the sink. _

 

_ “And a pint in the pub afterwards?” bargained Kate, slipping her hand around Osgood’s waist and turning into her. _

 

_ “I’ll go get my coat,” said Osgood, liking the plan and not yet noticing Kate’s movements. _

 

_ “In a minute…” amended Kate, taking a deliberate step forwards so she was much closer to Osgood, close enough that her immediate intention was obvious. _

 

_ “I thought you wanted to go out…” Despite her words, Osgood was happy to mirror her girlfriend’s actions and take a step too, making it very easy for them to lean in to… _

 

_ “MUM? WHERE’S THE CLEANING STUFF?” _

 

_...not kiss, as Max’s shout had Kate dropping her head onto Osgood’s shoulder with a groan. _

 

_ “I’m going to kill that boy…” she growled, closing her eyes in frustration. _

 

_ “No, you’re not,” corrected Osgood patiently, patting Kate’s back in a disappointingly platonic and reassuring fashion. _

 

_ “I’m not?” _

 

_ “No, you’re going to get the ravens to do it,” said Osgood, speaking quite clearly as she looked over Kate’s shoulder to the rather sheepish looking Max who was stood in the kitchen doorway. _

 

_ “That’s an idea…” agreed Kate, not moving from her position - within the boundaries of propriety that she and Osgood, as reasonably private people, were comfortable with, she wasn’t going to hide her relationship in her own kitchen.  Nor was she going to respond to Max’s shouted question either - she hadn’t when he was 15 and living at home, she wasn’t going to start now he was 26.   _

 

_ “Messy though…”  As Osgood spoke, she had to concentrate very hard on keeping a straight face as Max, who had clearly been told by Gordy (or just remembered himself) that his mother’s house rules about shouting at her hadn’t changed, nor had the location of the cleaning stuff which was still on the same shelf in the Laundry that it had been when they were teenagers and tasked with doing the chores.  She’d seen the usually amiable Troop leader in some rather amusing situations at work, but seeing the 6 foot plus half-Fijian soldier tiptoeing in his socks across the kitchen to grab the bucket containing the bathroom cleaning materials from the shelf in the Laundry had to be one of the funniest ever. _

 

_ “He could clean that up too…” muttered Kate, deciding that as long as Osgood was still holding her hips she was probably not needed to be ‘Mother’ to her overgrown babies and could therefore stay where she was, especially if she turned her head and breathed on that particular spot she remembered finding long ago, just below Osgood’s ear… _

 

_ “Ah, um…”  _

 

_ Max froze in the Laundry when he heard Osgood make some strange noises, waiting for the next noise he heard to give him some clue as to what was happening before he tried to stealthily leave the kitchen with the cleaning stuff. _

 

_ “... that could be…” Osgood was struggling to concentrate as Kate, having found the spot on her neck that was especially nice with some well placed breaths, was now experimenting with fleeting licks and kisses, making completing her sentence a challenge. “...difficult, if the ravens have already killed him.” _

 

_ Despite all his training, Max failed to stop a small squeak of alarm as he suddenly realised he had stupidly assumed Osgood would have been on his side: of course, at home, she’d side with his Mum.  Realising his only option, if he didn’t want another ‘I’m disappointed’ lecture, was to escape back to Gordy’s room as fast as possible, he carefully picked up the bucket and prepared to make a dash for it back through the kitchen to the ‘safety’ of the hall. _

 

_ “Oh…” Kate reluctantly lifted her head so she could look properly at her girlfriend, who could see from the smirk that Kate had, one way or another, worked out that Max was in earshot, “...the ravens wouldn’t have killed him immediately, just pecked quite thoroughly at him.  They’re very well trained…” Kate winked at Osgood, having been watching Max’s stealthy transit across the room in the window where, thanks to the way the lights reflected, she could see his reflection, “...and actually remember their training, unlike my sons.”  At this, she was pleased to see Max’s reflection freeze again.  “We’ll pretend you didn’t shout and I didn’t see you Max,” she warned, not turning round, but instead looking at her girlfriend, who seemed amused by the whole situation. _

 

_ “Yes Mum.”  He couldn’t believe it - he was 26, had lived off and on in this house for almost half of his life, was a highly trained and decorated elite soldier used to dealing with all manner of alien assault and yet he still couldn’t sneak past Kate in her kitchen. _

 

_ “Walk?” asked Kate, ignoring him and instead remaining focussed on Osgood. _

 

_ “In a minute,” corrected Osgood, deciding she wasn’t going to be deprived her kiss, “and Max is going, before he gets asked to do the laundry too…”  _

 

_ It was all the hint he needed… and, he realised a second later, when he was halfway up the stairs, maybe Osgood was on his side, a bit at least, after all.  Reaching the top of the stairs, he put the cleaning bucket down and went across the landing to the airing cupboard, out of which he extracted another set of bedding for Gordy’s bed. _

 

_ “Gord?” _

 

_ “Hmm?” _

 

_ “Time for a clean bed mate…” _

 

_ If he changed the bed now, he could have the washing on as soon as they left for their walk:  it would be dry and back in the airing cupboard before they got home… and maybe he’d be on his way back into Kate’s good books… particularly if he ironed it too. _

 

* * *

  
  


“How’s the pint?” asked Osgood, noticing that despite the large gulp, her friend and colleague was still looking like he was expecting Kate to turn into a Dalek.

 

“Good…” McGillop looked at the glass which, to his embarrassment, was now approaching half empty, “...very good.  I hadn’t expected the beer to be so good…” he trailed off, suddenly lacking the confidence to finish his intended sentence.

 

“Considering this place looks like a yuppy winebar?” suggested Kate, instinctively shifting in her seat so that she would be able to reach forward and pick up her own pint and take a sip when she wanted to with relative ease.

 

“Ugh...mmm!”  McGillop let out a rather awkward squeaking noise which, given that it was accompanied by an odd sort of head-bobbing motion, Kate chose to interpret as an agreement..

 

“It didn’t always look this…” she glanced around the pub (as she still thought of it), searching for an appropriate word, “...trendy.  Gordy tells me it’s trying to appeal to the hipsters, whatever they are,” continued Kate, picking up her pint before, glass only a couple of inches off the table, freezing and turning to Osgood with a look of horror on her face, “is Gordy a hipster?”

 

“What? No…” Osgood tried to contain her amusement, but was failing as even McGillop could see through her attempt at a poker face.  Trying to help his friend, he asked Kate,

 

“Do you know Hertens, in the Chemistry lab?”  Kate caught her lower lip between her teeth as she tried to match the name with something, anything in her memory.

 

“The one with the unnecessarily big beard and puffy hair on the top of his head but nothing round by his ears?”  In spite of still feeling like he wanted to escape, McGillop did manage to relax enough to smile at Kate’s description of the junior scientist.

 

“Yes, that’s Hertens.  He’s a hipster.”

 

“Do they all look like that?”  McGillop looked at Osgood, who shrugged and carried on sipping her pint, clearly indicating he was on his own with this topic of conversation now it had moved into the generalities of hipster style. 

 

“Broadly speaking, yes,” he explained cautiously, unclear whether Kate was asking out of horror or curiosity.

 

“Why?” Recognising the question as being asked with the same searching, fascinated expression that he knew from when she was in his lab getting an update on whatever was the alien mystery of the week, McGillop sensed that Gordy probably wasn’t a hipster after all, which was a good thing, as McGillop wasn’t sure there was anyone less well qualified to explain hipster style than him.

 

“To be different.”

 

“Of course.”  Satisfied that she now understood the term, and had an explanation for the quite unique (to her, at least) appearance of Hertens, Kate was happy to let the subject drop and have another sip of her pint.  McGillop on the other hand, was finally over his nerves and had a question.

 

“Is he?”

 

“Is who what?” asked Kate, pausing again with her glass in mid air, her body leaning forwards - to both McGillop and Osgood the position looked extremely awkward and uncomfortable, but Kate seemed perfectly at ease.

 

“Gordy, is he a hipster?”

 

“What? No, he isn’t.”  Smiling, Kate put her glass back down, before adding, “how could he be?  He works for the Financial Times!”

 

“He’s not a hipster,” agreed Osgood, knowing that McGillop was thinking that being a journalist did not in anyway prohibit someone being a hipster.

 

“I don’t think he could grow a beard that…”

 

“Fluffy?” guessed Osgood, seeing the man moving through the bar area that had caught her girlfriend’s eye.

 

“I was going to say that wasn’t ginger,” corrected Kate dryly, as only a mother really could, “but now you mention it, I seem to remember his attempts to convince me he didn’t need to shave always came out,” she paused, trying to work out what the word would be before admitting defeat, “not fluffy.”

 

“I don’t know how they do it myself,” agreed McGillop, deciding that as long as he didn’t try to analyse why he was discussing gentlemen’s grooming with his Boss, he was actually enjoying himself, “I don’t mind it for a day or two but can’t stand it itching after that, and the kids really don’t like it.”

 

“Where are the twins?” asked Osgood, aware that Kate only really knew about McGillop’s 6 month old son, who was currently playing with a small, brightly coloured caterpillar toy whilst sitting contentedly in Kate’s lap.

 

“Visiting their grandparents, ah, Jane’s parents.”  McGillop took another sip of his beer and looked fondly at the little boy who, for a brief moment thought about throwing aside his toy and making a serious attempt at grabbing the table, only to be thwarted by Kate’s instinctive intervention which saw him scooped up and repositioned in her lap, the table once more well out of reach and the caterpillar firmly held in front of him by her.  Impressively, having got him settled comfortably again, she still had a hand free, enabling her to take another drink of her own beer, which was really rather good.

 

“I thought you were all going?” Osgood tried to remember what else he’d told her about his Christmas plans, apart from that they were spending the whole Christmas and New Year period together as a family, staying either with his parents or his wife’s.

 

“We were, but that was until her sister rang last night.  Her littlest, who’s 7 like the twins are, came out with a chickenpox rash yesterday lunch time.”

 

“She still staying with them?” guessed Osgood, vaguely remembering McGillop mentioning something about not looking forward to spending the holidays with his sister-in-law as well as his mother-in-law.

 

“Yes, so last night I was on a train back to London with Oli and Jane and the twins carried on to her parents’ place; the twins had chickenpox last year, so there didn’t seem to be much point in stopping them see their cousins.”

 

“6 months is a little young to get chicken pox,” agreed Kate, who had been following the conversation but hadn’t felt the need to join in until she felt she could contribute something, “Gordy got it when he was 2, which was just about tolerable.  Still, at least he got it over with.”

 

“That was Fran, uh, my sister’s view as well.”  Osgood could feel Kate’s frown start to form at this seemingly random introduction of another new name.

 

“Oh, yes, she lives around here, doesn’t she?” guessed Osgood, dredging up a half remembered snippet of small talk she’d heard McGillop awkwardly sharing with one of the other research scientists at a Christmas party some years earlier.

 

“Yes.  Since we weren’t planning on being back at home for another week, Fran told me to stay with her and her family.  But she’s having a New Year’s Day lunch party, so Oli and I decided a walk would be more fun.”

 

“Does Fran have children?” asked Kate, sensing from how frazzled McGillop had looked as he walked into the pub with a loudly unhappy Oli, that his use of ‘fun’ was somewhat more sarcastic than he’d made it sound.

 

“No.  It was kind of her to invite us, but…” he took a thoughtful sip of his drink as he watched Oli try unsuccessfully to separate Kate’s finger from the ring that was on it, “...I imagine other people’s children aren’t always welcome intrusions...”  Before he could go on to thank Kate for stepping in and helping him with Oli who had calmed almost as soon as he felt he was in the hands of someone who was not going to be influenced by screams, not to mention apologise to both of them for interrupting their New Year’s Day, Kate was… making a noise he’d never heard her make before.

 

“She’s laughing…” explained Osgood, looking from a confused McGillop to her girlfriend, whose reason for laughing was currently escaping Osgood.

 

“Sorry…” Kate composed herself and repositioned Oli, who had nearly fallen off her lap in his attempts to find the source of the new sound that he’d proceed to spend the next few minutes trying unsuccessfully to imitate, “...I hate to break it to you McGillop, but there will always  be times when your own children aren’t always welcome intrusions…”

 

“I thought that stopped when they got older?”

 

“Oh no, they discover alcohol and mobile phones…” As Kate spoke, Osgood suddenly became fascinated with helping Oli work out which end of his caterpillar toy had the squeaker in.

 

“Oh god…” McGillop hadn’t thought of what would happen once his children had all got old enough to know how to take themselves to the toilet and keep quiet-ish when other people were talking.  “But it’s just a phase, they grow out of being teenagers right?” he asked, looking at Kate with an almost forlorn expression, having not previously considered what might happen once the twins became old enough to get into real trouble.

 

“Mine are in their mid 20s…” 

  
  


* * *

 

 

_ Having taken a little longer than she had planned, (although she knew Gordy’s distress was entirely self-inflicted and non-life-threatening, she was his mother and hadn’t been able to ignore the pitiful sounds of retching interspersed with groans, but she was pleased to see Max’s sense of responsibility towards his brother had kicked in, eventually), Kate turned the corner on the stairs and came to a stop. _

 

_ Leaning against the window sill that was just inside the front door, duffle coat on but not yet fastened, stood Osgood, engrossed in one of her ever present ‘pocket reads’.  Fascinated, Kate leant against the wall, all thoughts of rushing down so they could head out for their walk forgotten.  As Osgood reached the bottom of the page she was reading, she repositioned the book so that she could turn the page, enabling Kate to see enough of the front cover of the book to recognise it as one of the bundle of 1950s pocket reference books that Gordy had found for Osgood’s Christmas present.   _

 

_ Gordy, child of the electronic reference book, had been intrigued to discover that Osgood, whilst perfectly conversant with all the electronic information sources that he was (and several more highly classified ones he wasn’t), never went anywhere without a battered old paperback in the pocket of her duffle coat.  How else, argued Osgood, was she to know what the past thought about itself (and no one at UNIT thought it strange that she considered a period of time to be sentient, at least half of UNIT shared that view, and the rest… they generally just hated time too much to consider the question), than to study its contemporary accounts?   _

 

_ It was a logical argument Kate hadn’t really known how to refute, and since she was also clear that Osgood’s ability to remember random pieces of information from history and knit them together in the present had helped them to preserve their future on more than one occasion, she really wasn’t going to try.  What Osgood had dismissively taken to describing as ‘OCD’, Kate had mentally taken to considering her ‘Osgoodness’, finding it endearing and loveable, and yes, she was biased. _

 

_ The weak winter sunlight was just about forcing its way through the window and into the hall, throwing an Osgood-shaped silhouette against the opposite wall and causing the odd glimmer and spark in the air between the original and her shadow as microscopic specks of dust were caught in its pale but golden rays. Had the light been stronger, it would have prohibited Kate from being able to see her girlfriend's tension free face, open and relaxed as she read about the citrus fruit production of the Empire, the prowess of the Australian Cricket team or whatever other esoteric fact of past lives, long since lived and lost, the little book had chosen to record when those lives were present and for the living.  Absent were any signs of impatience or irritation that Kate’s ‘I’ll just be a minute’ had stretched.  Instead, Osgood was Osgood, turning her mind to something, her body patient and calm, waiting but not worrying.  As she moved to turn another page, Kate was conscious she was still stood part way down the stairs, no doubt gawping like a lovesick teenager, and as a result, spurred herself into movement once more. _

 

_ “Sorry, I…” _

 

_ “Went to check on Gordy.  How is he?” asked Osgood, looking up from her book as she automatically reinserted the piece of paper that she was using as a bookmark between the open pages. _

 

_ “Feeling sorry for himself, but he’s through the worst of it now.”  Not wanting to discuss Gordy’s digestive difficulties any further, Kate caught Osgood’s hands in her own, stopping the book from disappearing back into the depths of a duffle coat pocket.  “Cotton exports?” _

 

_ “BOAC fleet composition: I’m saving cotton exports.”  It had taken Osgood a bit of time to really believe that Kate was genuinely interested in what she was reading about, being more used to people finding her reading habits amusing than interesting.  But then, when they’d first started working together, it had taken her a couple of years to realise that Kate’s ‘I’m interested, please keep talking’ voice was almost as light and easy-sounding as her ‘please keep talking, I’m smiling because I’m happy’ voice.  _

 

_ “What sort of special occasion merits cotton exports?” As she asked the question, Kate let go of the book, enabling Osgood to put it safely in her pocket.  _

 

_ “Who said anything about it being a special occasion?” countered Osgood, discovering that, without the book between them, there had been nothing stopping Kate from taking another step forwards - Osgood was now unable to stand up properly without forcing her girlfriend to take a step backwards. _

 

_ “You did say you were saving it…” teased Kate, occupying her hands with the toggles on Osgood’s duffle coat, “...doesn’t that make it special?” _

 

_ “Not necessarily.”  Osgood’s fingers, no longer content with methodically checking the contents of her coat pockets (book, handkerchief, gloves, pen knife and peppermints), busied themselves with finding the edges of Kate’s trouser pockets, just in case Kate thought about stepping backwards.  “I could be saving it for a less special moment.” _

 

_ “What could be less special than waiting for me?” asked Kate, leaning forwards, into Osgood, whose position, propped up against the window sill, meant that she wouldn’t fall away from Kate.  “I give you enough opportunities…” _

 

_ “Waiting for someone else?” Feeling Kate’s weight shifting against her, Osgood’s fingers moved from Kate’s trouser pockets and traced around the waistband, her right hand stopping when she found a little gather of t-shirt fabric, caught unnoticed under the over-shirt Kate was wearing.  “And I don’t mind...when else would I get a moment to read?” she asked teasingly, taking advantage of the fact that their relative positions meant she had a rare opportunity to look down at her girlfriend’s face. _

 

_ “Funny....” Kate tempered her sarcastic sounding retort with a gentle tug on the upper-most toggles on the duffle coat, giving what she hoped was a pretty clear hint to Osgood as to what she was expected to do. _

 

_ “Good job I got all those books…” continued Osgood, dipping her head forwards and down so that her parted lips could touch Kate’s fleetingly, “...for Christmas…” she dipped her head again, savouring the feel of Kate’s now parted lips fitting against her own. _

 

_ “What can I say?” breathed Kate, pulling back from Osgood’s lips and, taking advantage of her angled position against her girlfriend, reacquainted herself with the warm, soft, uniquely wonderfully tasting skin along the underside of Osgood’s jaw, “my diary’s a mess…” _

_   
“Mmm…” Experienced fingers managed to easily work at that barely detectable gather of fabric such that a very small, hardly noticeable amount of Kate’s t-shirt was untucked, just enough for Osgood to slip her index and middle finger through, enabling her to start sketching aimless swirling patterns across the tiny patch of silky smooth skin she found.  It wasn’t as good as kissing Kate, but as long as she couldn’t reach any of her with her lips, it would do as a substitute.  “...you’re a woman in demand…” _

 

_ “Not demanding?” asked Kate, abandoning Osgood’s neck as she, trying to keep her tone light, sought out Osgood’s steady gaze, the worry in her eyes revealing the doubts and the worries she tried to hide. _

 

_ “You’re a woman in demand,” repeated Osgood, never stilling her fingers but glad to once again be able to lavish some kisses of her own on Kate, although she couldn’t quite reach her girlfriend’s equally sensitive neck and so contented herself with once more pressing brief kisses to drying lips, “who makes time for her friends, family…” Osgood tilted her head towards the stairs, as if nodding towards where they both knew Max and Gordy to be, a movement that also enabled her to explore the underside of Kate’s jaw with a few fleeting kisses as she worked her way back around to Kate’s lips, “...and lover.”    _

 

_ “Smooth talker…” muttered Kate in a fleeting moment when her lips were not pressed up against her lover’s, as they exchanged playful nips and kisses, neither one prepared to let the other one take the lead, each wanting to be the one to shower affection on the other.  How long they stayed, bodies pressed together from ankle to lips, they didn’t know, so irrelevant was time to them in that moment, a moment that had no planned ending… but did have an unplanned interruption. _

 

_ “WILL YOU TURN THAT BLOODY PHONE OFF!” shouted Gordy, only to immediately follow it with a groan as he discovered that he had possibly caused himself more pain than the tinny sound of the Star Wars theme, played at maximum volume by Max’s phone had, which was evidently abandoned somewhere in the Hall. _

 

_ “Walk?” asked Kate, the sound of the phone ringing having interrupted their kiss just enough for their lips to part, although she didn’t immediately move any further, meaning Osgood remained trapped against the window ledge. _

 

_ “That was the plan,” agreed Osgood, enjoying the moment of silence as whoever was calling either gave up or... _

 

_ “THE FORCE IS STRONG IN THIS ONE.” They left a voicemail. _

 

_ “Walk.” In a single, smooth movement, Kate managed to step back from Osgood and turn to open the front door, followed by Osgood, just as Max landed with a thump at the bottom of the stairs, intending to look for his phone. _

 

_ “Oh, thought you’d gone out for your walk?”  He hadn’t expected to see his mother and Osgood only just heading out, having heard her say goodbye to Gordy about ten minutes earlier. _

 

_ “Just leaving…” Osgood reached into her duffle coat pocket and pulled out the battered paperback, “...your mother let me finish reading about cotton exports…”   _

 

_ “O...k...a….y….” Max was reasonably confident that his mother looked like she’d been quite thoroughly kissed, but there was no way he was going to risk it by asking, not as long as Gordy was still… not well.  “...enjoy your walk, I’ll just go and find my phone…” _

 

_ “Good luck!” said Osgood kindly, stepping out to join Kate, shutting the door behind her and falling into step alongside Kate as they headed up the drive, the paperback safely back in her pocket. _

 

_ “So much for saving cotton exports…” said Kate, wrapping her hand around Osgood’s arm, missing the contact after their kiss.  _

 

_ “Pardon?” _

 

_ “You’re going to have to read about cotton exports now...” _

 

* * *

  
  


“At least you got a pint out of your walk,” observed Osgood once she’d sensed the toast to ever present children had concluded and was reasonably confident her cheeks weren’t flaming red. Knowing from her own experiences with Kate that this pub was not easily walked past, it made her think McGillop might have had more of a plan than he was letting on to.

 

“Fran’s husband might have mentioned this place…” McGillop looked around the room again, before adding, “he didn’t say anything about the decoration though.”

 

“No,” agreed Osgood, following his gaze towards the classic red telephone box that was standing in the middle of the room, now converted into a rather eccentric fish tank that, if her piscine knowledge was correct, appeared to be furnished with some piranhas.  “Takes some getting used to.”

 

“It wasn’t always like this…” Before Kate could elaborate, she took a tentative sniff and quickly lifted up the baby,“...but I understand the gents now has a baby changing facility.”

 

“Apparently, yes.  It’s one of the reasons my brother-in-law suggested it,” confirmed McGillop, still rather fascinated by the telephone box fish tank.

 

Kate straightened her arms, so that baby Oliver was being held in mid air over the table, but in the general direction of his father.

 

“McGillop?”

 

“Yes?” He stopped looking around the bar and turned back to look at them, only to almost be kicked in the face by his son, “oh, right.  Sorry.”  Sheepishly, he took Oli from Kate’s grasp and managed, admittedly with neither grace or efficiency, to pick up the rucksack he was using to carry the ‘baby stuff’ and stand, without dropping either the bag or his son, “I’ll, uh, go change this little guy.”

 

As they watched McGillop weave his way through the groups of drinkers (‘hipster’ and ‘normal’ as Kate now knew to think of them), Osgood dropped her left hand onto Kate’s thigh and gave a gentle squeeze of affectionate reassurance.

 

“See? Not all change is a bad thing…”  

 

* * *

  
  
  


_ “That child should be walking…” _

 

_ “What child?”  Looking up from her book, Osgood looked at her girlfriend, trying to work out what she was talking about. _

 

_ “The child in that pushchair,” said Kate, tilting her head in the direction of the next bench along the path to theirs, where Osgood could see a woman clearly engaging in some sort of battle of wills with the pushchair’s occupant. _

 

_ “Not necessarily…” reasoned Osgood automatically, logically considering the possibilities, having not seen the child as it was pushed past them, “...it could be a much younger child using an older sibling’s pushchair?” Applying the principle of Occam's Razor, that was the most sensible suggestion to start with, although if it was a workday, she’d have probably started with shapeshifters. _

 

_ “If the child is old enough to know their elbow from their wrist and describe their forearm as the radius and ulna, it is old enough to walk,” grumbled Kate, shifting against Osgood’s side so that the cold duffle coat toggle wasn’t touching the end of her nose. _

 

_ “Fair enough.”  Deciding that she was just wanting to have a bit of a grumble, Osgood was happy to let her girlfriend continue, at least for as long as it took her to finish the article on cotton exports that Kate was insisting she did actually read before she saw Max again. _

 

_ “It’s not a pushchair, it’s a handbag extension…” continued Kate, confirming Osgood’s assessment - for whatever reason, she was evidently feeling a little bit out of sorts but, as long as she was content to stay tucked against her girlfriend, Osgood was content to let her grumble her way back into sorts, confident that whatever had disrupted Kate’s mood wasn’t Osgood herself. _

 

_ “Children do seem to need a lot of stuff,” agreed Osgood, thinking for a moment about how much luggage her sister seemed to need to travel with since having her kids, never mind the mountain of ‘stuff’ that both Gordy and Max always arrived at the house with, although even Osgood’s instincts managed to correctly anticipate that approximately half of each mountain was dirty washing. _

 

_ “I…” Whatever Kate was about to say, she evidently changed her mind, “...nevermind, I’m being grumpy.”  This attracted Osgood’s undivided attention - it wasn’t unheard of for Kate to have a few minutes of grumpiness, but it was unusual for the blonde to acknowledge it so directly. _

 

_ “What’s up?” she asked simply, closing the book and once more putting it back in her pocket. _

 

_ “I…”  Reluctantly Kate eased herself into a more upright sitting position, making it easier to have eye contact with Osgood.  “I’m feeling old, no…” she put her finger to Osgood’s lips, encouraging her to stay quiet, “I don’t mean old as in my age… I mean old as in I’ve been coming here for a long time, since the boys and I moved into that house…” _

 

_ “The boys weren’t in pushchairs were they?” asked Osgood, taking advantage of Kate’s finger no longer being pressed against her lips. _

 

_ “What? No, of course not!  You know I didn’t adopt Max until he was fourteen…” Kate looked at Osgood and saw the amusement in her eyes, “stop teasing me!” _

 

_ “Sorry… so, you moved here when?” asked Osgood, gently prompting Kate to return to her point, curious to know what it was, although pleased to see that her grumpiness was passing. _

 

_ “2004, right before Christmas…I’d been Max’s guardian for about 3 weeks...”  Kate lapsed into silence as she remembered those horrific weeks during November: she’d spent most of her time at Max’s side as, understandably angry at his father’s violent death as a result of an IED exploding under him in Afghanistan, he’d had to come to terms with his mother’s more gradual decline and passing in the sterile environment of a hospital intensive care unit following a car crash.  Individually, each loss would have been a challenge for the teenager, but for both traumatic events to happen in the same day… to this day she wasn’t entirely sure how Max had come through that, but come through he had, and grown up to become a man both his parents would have been very proud of, a man she was proud of.  _

 

_ “You were working full time in Geneva by then, weren’t you?” checked Osgood eventually, knowing where Kate’s thoughts had gone and attempting, with trying to sort through their own personal history, to ease Kate back out of those traumatic memories and into less painful ones.  It wasn’t an entirely selfless question -  whilst her memory was totally clear on the phases of their respective careers and relationship, even years later, Osgood found her recollections to be a little bit hazier on how they all interrelated than she would like, given how important Kate and her boys were to her. _

 

_ “Yes, I’d been in Geneva for about six months… but that Christmas it was the three of us for the first time, and we came up here a lot.” _

 

_ “It was different?”  Osgood shifted on the seat, making it easier for Kate to snuggle against her, making it more comfortable for Osgood to be snuggled against as her arm dropped loosely around Kate’s shoulders and helped to hold their bodies close together. _

 

_ “The Heath?  Not so different…” Kate turned her head slightly and gestured across the grass to where some children were investigating a tree stump, “...but that stump was a tree.  The minute Max saw it he was off, climbed right to the top of it…I think he was trying to make me get angry with him…” _

 

_ “You didn’t though…” Osgood felt Kate move against her, clearly surprised by her conclusion, “...I know you… you climbed it too, didn’t you?” _

 

_ “Not that day…” Unseen by Osgood, Kate smiled as watery tears escaped, dampening her cheeks and Osgood’s duffle coat, the tears brought on by a mix of the memories of that difficult time with Max so understandably angry and Osgood being, well, her Osgood. “...I had broken fingers…” _

 

_ “I remember that…” muttered Osgood, instinctively reaching for the index finger and middle fingers of Kate’s left hand, “...and I still want to apologise.” _

 

_ “You didn’t need to then, and you certainly don’t need to now!” Kate sat up properly, not letting go of Osgood’s hand, wanting to have both physical and eye contact with her girlfriend, “it wasn’t your fault the stewardess shut my broken finger in the overhead locker…” _

 

_ “No, but it was my fault your finger was broken in the first place…” Breaking eye contact, Osgood intently focussed on the finger in question, running her fingertips over the joints, as if to confirm that, more than ten years later, Kate’s finger was actually healed.  _

 

_ “If you insist.”  If Osgood wanted to take the blame because she collided with Kate and in the resultant tangle of bodies, skis and ski poles Kate’s finger had been broken, then Kate wasn’t going to argue, not now.  She’d tried, on the few occasions they’d ended up debating accountability for that skiing mishap, to point out that if she hadn’t been distracting her with silliness that they could no longer remember, she wouldn’t have missed the step and the collision would have never happened.  But that wasn’t relevant just now.  “So I didn’t actually climb the tree for another few weeks, when the boys were home for half term -  the daffodils were out…” _

 

_ “I’ve still got the photograph,” said Osgood, thinking of the faded print out she still had in her now very battered filofax that was in her desk drawer at UNIT, “always wondered where you took it.” _

 

_ “Part way up the tree that’s no longer there, looking this way…” realised Kate, looking again at the stump and trying to orientate herself, “it was an easy tree to climb, far easier than the ones in the garden when I was growing up.  It was the first photograph I took on a mobile phone, deliberately I mean… you’ve still got it?” _

 

_ “Yes.”  Osgood knew she was blushing, but didn’t care, not when it was just her and Kate.  “It’s at the Tower.” _

 

_ “I’ve not seen it…” At least, she was reasonably confident she hadn’t failed to notice her own photograph. _

 

_ “It’s in my filofax…” which, Kate knew, was carefully stored in the desk drawer alongside Osgood’s collection of ‘not for drinking’ mugs (Osgood had perfected the art of microwave cooking in mugs years before it was popular - the secret, she’d discovered, was finding the right mug for the right recipe: scrambled egg was excellent in her ‘Geneva’ mug, but a chocolate brownie muffin was too chewy, and worked best in the CERN one), “I meant to put it back up, when I got to UNIT but…” _

 

_ “It was a bit hectic, for everyone, and at least I had the advantage of knowing I had Geneva’s support…” Reluctant to get lost in the memories of her first days in charge at the Tower, when she’d been given the task of trying to sort out some sort of truce between the military and science teams and create a cohesive, but ultimately science led UK UNIT division after the destruction of Torchwood in 2009, Kate distracted herself by returning to some earlier memories, “...wait, you said put it back up…” _

 

_ “Before, in the Civil Service, I always put it up somewhere on my desk or wall.”  ‘Civil Service’ was Osgood’s catch-all description for her various posts as an increasingly well-respected scientific advisor across a number of UK Government organisations prior to joining UNIT when Kate took over at the Tower.  “But I never really found a bit of wall… and I didn’t really need a photograph anymore,” she added softly, reaching out with a tentative finger and lifting an errant strand of hair away from Kate’s nose. _

 

_ “I’d not meant for you to keep it - I remember, we’d just sat down in the branches…” Kate chewed her lower lip as she tried to force away the lump in her throat, “... and he, uh, Max just started talking to me, about his parents, and school…” Feeling her cheeks getting wet, Kate started to turn away from Osgood, intending to use her coat cuff to wipe her face, only to be presented with her girlfriend’s handkerchief.  “Thanks…” A moment later she was feeling more composed and continued, “...anyway, afterwards, before we climbed down, Max asked me if I’d learnt how to take pictures on my new phone yet.  So that wonky picture of my foot and the daffodils was my first, awful attempt…” she looked fondly at Osgood, “you weren’t supposed to keep it for more than 10 seconds, never mind 10 years…” _

 

_ “Nearly 11, and it’s a great photograph, my desk was much the brighter for it.”  _

 

_ “But, a photograph, of me, on your desk…” Kate was amazed - although they’d never experienced any direct abuse or issue with their relationship, it took more than legislative changes to change institutional behaviour and attitudes, and both women had been aware that some of the bits of Government that Osgood had been working in and with had been the parts that evolved more slowly.  2004 might have been the year that Civil Partnerships became legislatively possible, but that didn’t automatically translate into rainbow lab coats in classified government projects as quickly 2005 when that picture had first appeared on Osgood’s desk. _

 

_ “So did you.” _

 

_ “Yes, but…” Kate didn’t need to verbalise what they both knew - it had been different for her. Based at UNIT in Geneva, where everyone was ‘here because of work’, be it at UNIT or one of the other global organisations based there,  no one cared about your private life: you came to the office, did your duty, went back to your furnished apartment to sleep and started again the following day.  If you had the energy or inclination to do anything else, no one cared, unless it was skiing at the weekend, in which case everyone wanted to compare tips on where to find the best snow, or borrow ski equipment for visitors.  And if all that hadn’t been enough, Kate had by then already discovered what being a ‘Lethbridge-Stewart’ meant within the upper echelons of UNIT - it was one of the reasons why she’d insisted that she be known as ‘Kate Stewart’ when the transfer to the Tower was proposed. _

 

_ “Everyone just assumed the hiking boot was mine…” Osgood lifted her foot which, more than ten years later, was still clad in the comfortable boots she preferred, “...and occasionally told me random facts about daffodils…” _

 

_ “Squirrels won’t eat them…” _

 

_ “Because they’re toxic, yes.  And the flowers are bisexual, sort of.” _

 

_ Kate opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, and blinked.  Amused, Osgood watched to see what she would do or say next, as it was a rare moment when Osgood beat her girlfriend on horticultural facts, particularly anything that was either native to, or widely cultivated in the British Isles. _

 

_ “All narcissus have hermaphroditic flowers… apart from holly, most people don’t think about gender in plants…” _

 

_ “It certainly doesn’t feature in Gossypium…”  _

 

_ “Gossypium?”  Kate was certain it wasn’t a British cultivar, and it wasn’t alien… _

 

_ “Cotton,” said Osgood simply, producing her little book from her pocket once more. _

 

_ In retrospect, Kate had perhaps hit her a little harder than was strictly ‘playful’, but then again, she had been looking extremely smug…. _

 

* * *

  
  
  


Turning to look at her girlfriend, Kate put her own hand on top of Osgood’s and then picked it up not, as she might have once done years ago, so as to remove it from her thigh, but so that she could thread their fingers together, before shifting so that, now she no longer needed to keep a lap for a baby to sit on, she could lean against Osgood a bit.

 

“No, some change is really rather nice… McGillop’s different, out of the office.”

 

“How so?”  Osgood was curious.  Admittedly Kate didn’t have quite as much one-on-one contact with McGillop as Osgood did, and there was usually some potentially humanity ending incident influencing everyone’s blood pressure at the time, but even allowing for a screaming 6 month old Oliver, she hadn’t noticed anything in particular.

 

“Nothing… I mean, nothing obvious, although it’s a bit odd seeing him without his lab coat.”

 

“You of all people should know scientists don’t have to wear a lab coat…” teased Osgood, taking off her glasses when she realised that the smudge appearing to be on the end of Kate’s nose was actually on the lens.

 

“Problem?”

 

“I’ll clean them in a bit…” dismissed Osgood, putting them down next to her pint, quite content to not wear them for a while, only for Kate to reach for them and start to clean them using the cuff of her shirt.

 

“You’d get cross if the boys did that…”

 

“I’d be more cross if they were wearing your shirt!”

 

“About that…”

 

“You want it back?”  Not stopping her steady polishing, Kate did look at her girlfriend, concerned: she liked this shirt, a lot.

 

“No. I was going to point out that since it’s been in your wardrobe for at least three times as long as it ever was in mine…”

 

“That can’t be right!”

 

“I’ve not had it since I left your place…” began Osgood patiently, taking another sip of her pint as a deliberate delaying tactic, enjoying teasing Kate almost as much as she enjoyed the fact that she never managed to keep a shirt for more than 18 months, as at some point before then Kate would have claimed it.

 

“If you will leave things lying around…” muttered Kate, focusing intently on polishing the glasses, knowing exactly what Osgood was talking about.

 

“... to get the early morning flight…” continued Osgood, putting her drink back down on the table and reclaiming her glasses, which she put next to her glass, not interested in wearing them just yet, “...and you were wearing it when you got up to make me some breakfast.”

 

“It was January, I was cold!”

 

“And it was a lovely memory to bring home as a souvenir….” agreed Osgood, deciding that she didn’t need to point out what they both knew, namely that if Kate had been wearing a bit more than just Osgood’s shirt, she might not have felt the cool morning quite as sharply, “...from Geneva.”

 

“Your point?”

 

“That morning was seven years ago, or will be…” Osgood did some quick arithmetic, “two weeks from tomorrow.  I think that’s your shirt now.”

 

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Kate quickly, wanting to distract herself from the memory of the morning that she’d first worn this particular shirt, but also not wanting to dwell on the fact that it was a morning seven years ago...years that at times had felt significantly longer than the advertised 365-ish days it took to complete one Earth-based heliocentric orbit and yet at other times… there were moments from years ago that were as fresh as her memories of last week.

 

“What doesn’t work like that?” asked McGillop automatically as he returned to the table with a freshly nappied Oli, who had conclusively established that the tail of his caterpillar contained the squeaker, and was demonstrating its capability with enthusiasm and amusement.  It was only when McGillop found himself on the receiving end of one of Kate Stewart’s more focussed looks did he realise he might have verbally stepped where he wasn’t wanted.

 

“Sit down, you’ve not finished your drink…” encouraged Kate, sensing that if she didn’t say anything, he’d probably try and head back out to the Heath when clearly, both he and baby Oliver were better suited to each others’ company if they remained indoors, “and perhaps you can help me?”

 

“Okay...NO Oliver, that’s Daddy’s drink.”  Not having quite as much skill as Kate, it took McGillop a few goes to successfully get his glass past Oli and start to drink some more of his beer, during which time Osgood, now wearing her glasses once more, watched with what he could only describe as scientific curiosity, before asking suddenly

 

“Did, does your wife wear any of your clothes?”  

 

Despite knowing what they were talking about, and the reason why Osgood might want to ask McGillop that question, even Kate had to work hard to keep a reasonably neutral expression when she heard how her girlfriend phrased the question.  McGillop, not having the advantage of context, was not so lucky, and his mouthful of beer went rather painfully up his nose.  On the plus side, his lap was spared a soaking when he upset the rest of his undrunk beer as he instead tipped it over Oli.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Fifteen minutes later, a clean and dry Oliver was once more settled in Kate’s lap, and McGillop was eying his replacement pint with a hint of suspicion.  Whilst she was all for letting parents deal with their own children, she did feel a bit responsible for McGillop’s predicament and furthermore, based on how long he’d been gone when there was just a nappy to change, suspected that Oli would have had time to work himself up into a full-on screaming fit whilst his father changed his clothes.  She’d therefore, almost before McGillop had time to realise what he’d done, extracted Oli from him, picked up the baby bag and disappeared in the direction of the ladies, experience telling her that if she got the wet outer layer off Oli fast enough, not only would his underclothes still be dry, but he could be back playing with his caterpillar without really knowing he’d been wet.

 

“What’s wrong with the beer?”

 

“Absolutely nothing, it’s excellent beer, thank you.”

 

“But?”

 

“But…” began Kate, expertly rotating the caterpillar so Oli couldn’t actually get maximum volume out of the squeaker, leaning a bit more against Osgood and successfully encouraging her to put her arm around Kate, since she didn’t have a spare hand, “...I think he’s waiting for you to ask your poorly phrased question before he drinks any more of it,” she teased, pleased to feel Osgood’s relaxed body language, reassuring her that her girlfriend’s generally good humour was still intact.

 

“Funny… at some point, have you given up trying to find a particular jumper or shirt because it’s been permanently taken by Jane?”

 

“Borrowed, and yes.  Why?”  Feeling brave, and thirsty, McGillop risked a careful drink from his excellent pint, still unable to fully reconcile the quality of the beer with the fact he was drinking an ale recommended by Kate Stewart of all people, nevermind that the woman in question was keeping his youngest son amused whilst definitely not sitting professionally with Osgood.

 

“See?  Even McGillop said borrowed.”

 

“But it’s been seven years…”

 

“It doesn’t work like that,” said McGillop automatically, at least understanding the logical basis of their conversation, “sorry Osgood, but it doesn’t.  Clothes don’t transfer ownership - I own too many grey t-shirts according to Jane.”

 

“How many is too many?” asked Kate, right before Osgood said,

 

“But you only have two!” 

 

McGillop was impressed with how Kate managed to turn her head so she was looking at Osgood without actually moving from her side and look skeptical.  So impressed he forgot to be curious as to why his colleague was so familiar with his wardrobe, although clearly from Kate’s raised eyebrow, she wasn’t letting Osgood off the hook so easily.

 

“What?  I pay attention to my surroundings.  And I no longer mention your odd socks.”  It had taken a couple of years, but Osgood had finally come to terms with the fact that, not only did he wear socks with cartoon characters on them, but he wore different ones on each foot, without fail.

 

“They’re not odd, they’re novelty!” Sensing Kate was potentially going to start doubting both their sanities, and he was unlikely to get the same benefit of the doubt that Osgood would clearly receive, he explained, “at university I started wearing novelty socks - made doing the laundry easier.”  So far, Kate was with him - she’d been married long enough to know that 7 pairs of black mens’ socks going into the wash came out as 14 highly individual socks that were nearly but not quite the same colour, making sorting them back into 7 pairs of black socks an even more irritating task than sorting laundry already was.  “Thing is, if both socks are there same…”

 

“There’s no novelty when someone sees your second leg!”

 

“Quite.  So C-3PO is on one foot,” he lifted his left trouser leg just enough for Kate to see one quite vibrant gold patterned sock, “and…” he lifted his right trouser leg and surprised all of them with “...Mickey Mouse!”

 

“Definitely novel…” agreed Kate, elbowing Osgood when she heard her mutter ‘and odd’.

 

“Anyway, you’re right, I wear two grey t-shirts, fairly regularly, as I like them.  But according to Jane I own six, which is too many.”

 

“Why don’t you wear the other four?”

 

“Because Jane’s permanently borrowed them.  But they’re still ‘mine’.”

 

“Why?”  Logically, it made no sense.  Permanent borrow was merely an alternative way of defining ownership surely?

 

“Social convention I guess.”  Unfazed by his friend’s bafflement, McGillop moved onto what he considered to be the more interesting question, and one he wouldn’t have dared to ask if he hadn’t been part way down his third, reasonably strong pint (even if most of the second one had been spilt), “why did this come up?”

 

“Because this is her shirt.”

 

“That she’s owned for seven years.”

 

“That I’ve  _ borrowed _ for seven years.”

 

“Has had in her exclusive possession for at least 3 times longer than I had,” countered Osgood, frustrated that she still couldn’t remember exactly when she’d bought it, so she couldn’t be more precise in her assessment about how long Kate’s ownership of the shirt, relative to hers, had been.

 

“Hang on…” Later, when he was back at his sister’s, McGillop would realise that yes, he had cut across his boss, and had in fact held up his hand in the universally understood gesture of ‘wait a moment’.  “...that’s your shirt?” he asked, pointing at the red and black check shirt Kate was wearing over a black top.

 

“Osgood’s, yes,” confirmed Kate, smiling smugly at her girlfriend when he made her point for her by pointing at the shirt but looking at Osgood, “and stop trying to get the maths perfect,” she stage whispered, looking fondly at Osgood as she did so.

 

“That you’ve been borrowing for  _ seven _ years?”

 

“Ye...s…” There was something about the way he emphasised the seven that made Kate pause, only to feel Osgood shift against her as, clearly also picking up on the unusual emphasis, her girlfriend had turned her body a fraction so that Kate was now actually using Osgood as a (very comfortable) backrest, her arm wrapped protectively around Kate.

 

“How long have you two known each other?”

 

“Longer than seven years… and no, we didn’t know each other as children…” Osgood stopped, frowning, as she suddenly realised that she’d never actually asked Kate whether they had met, just always assumed that they hadn’t.  But now, having read the Brigadier’s notebook, which made her realise just how brotherly the relationship between their fathers had been, she wasn’t quite as confident as she’d always previously been.

 

“No, we didn’t know each other as children Os…” confirmed Kate, letting go of Oli’s caterpillar so she could place a reassuring hand on her lover’s thigh, “...I did meet your father a couple of times, but it was before you were born…” she looked pointedly at McGillop, “I was very young.”

 

“Yes Ma’am…” It was an instinctive response on his part, only to realise his mistake when he discovered he was on the receiving end of a rare Osgood glare, “...uh, Kate.  Umm, can I start again?” he asked nervously, looking at Kate.

 

“Sorry… yes, of course.”

 

“Umm…” Clearly unsettled still, McGillop took another fortifying gulp of his beer, impressed that Oli hadn’t yet thrown his caterpillar away, clearly completely comfortable on Kate’s lap.  “I wasn’t at UNIT, when you both arrived… I was on sabbatical, helping Jane with the twins.”

 

“I remember.”

 

“The twins?”

 

“No, I remember you were on sabbatical.”  Kate didn’t add that it was precisely because he’d been on sabbatical that he’d still had a job - such was the chaos following the destruction of Torchwood, both literal and political, that she’d struggled to convince Downing Street and Geneva that there was anyone at UNIT worth keeping.

 

“Right, so…” he cleared his throat, “...I’d always assumed you met each other then, when you came to the Tower, Kate.”  He said her name carefully, like it was a foreign word he’d only just learnt how to pronounce, but his clumsy carefulness was well rewarded with a fleeting smile from Kate and a more familiar grin from Osgood.  “But I’m obviously wrong?”

 

“Os?”

 

“You start… I’ll join in if I need to.”  Osgood wasn’t going to admit it in front of McGillop, but they hadn’t actually got much experience in ‘telling their story’ and she wasn’t entirely sure she knew how to begin.

 

“We first met in 2003, when we were both hired by… actually, I can’t remember their name, someone in the MOD who needed some scientific analysis.  We were part of the small team they brought in.”

 

“But you were already UNIT?”

 

“Nope.  I was lecturing and waiting to see if my lab was going to get its next phase funded, and Os was… where were you?” Kate was embarrassed she couldn’t remember.

 

“Technically nowhere - I’d finished my PhD and was about to start at the NPL,” she explained, knowing McGillop was familiar with the National Physics Laboratory, not at all offended that Kate hadn’t remembered where she’d been ‘borrowed’ from, “but you should mention the Doofus.”

 

“The Doofus?”

 

“Is what Gordy and Os call my ex-husband,” said Kate, having long since abandoned trying to suggest that it was not an appropriate way to describe the man she’d been married to for just over five years, especially when Gordy had offered an alternative nickname which Osgood thought was even more appropriate and was even less flattering than ‘Doofus’.

 

“Her not-ex-then husband,” corrected Osgood, quite particular on that point - she had never had an intimate relationship with a married woman, and Kate had never been unfaithful during her marriage.

 

“Okay…” There were lots of questions McGillop wanted to ask at this point, but he hadn’t yet drunk enough beer to risk the wrath of Kate by asking them.  Actually, he wasn’t sure he was able to drink the amount of beer required to give him the courage to ever ask Kate.

 

At that, a potentially awkward silence descended on the three adults, as McGillop’s question had, albeit literally, been answered. Had it not been for the now sleeping Oli burping and attracting their attention for a moment, they might have remained caught in an awkward limbo.   Instead, the noise triggered contrasting reactions among the group: McGillop and Osgood froze, as if terrified that moving would rouse the small infant, despite the reasonably noisy environment.  Kate, in contrast, just matter-of-factly removed the caterpillar from a rapidly relaxing little fist and eased Oli into what she knew would be a more supportive position for him and less painful position for her, assuming he was now asleep for the next 40 minutes or so. 

 

“McGillop?”

 

“Yes?” 

 

“That wasn’t exactly what you meant, was it?” asked Osgood, knowing that Kate’s literal answer to his question was probably not quite what he’d expected, once it was clear that they weren’t going to wake Oli.  Whilst Kate was first and foremost a scientist, she had also developed into a consummate diplomat and occasional politician, and unusually, one who stuck to answering precisely the question she was asked.  It was extremely useful when dealing with the Prime Minister or other UNIT senior figures, but did make exchanging ‘confidences’ with friends a bit more stilted.

 

“Ah, well…” McGillop sought the comfort of his pint as he tried to remember exactly what he’d asked and worked out how he was going to admit that yes, now he thought about it, he was rather more intrigued about their relationship than he’d care to admit.  “Maybe?” he finally hedged, smiling nervously at Osgood, honest enough to admit that he was too terrified to actually look Kate in the eye.

 

“We completed the research in the summer - I started at the NPL a couple of weeks later than planned but otherwise, no one really knew about it.  Kate was back lecturing when the new term started.  And that was that.”

 

“Until a few weeks later, when as my father would say, we were both summoned to Horse Guards for ‘tea and medals’,” said Kate dryly, nudging Osgood who obligingly passed Kate her beer which she’d just taken a sip from, realising that Kate could no longer reach her own glass with Oli fast asleep in her lap. As Kate had a drink, Osgood took up the tale, much to McGillop’s relief, as he was fascinated.

 

“Actually tea, and cake.  But there were some officers wearing medals.  We were rather awkwardly thanked and made to promise that we wouldn’t talk to anyone about the MOD again… oops, you should probably forget we told you this... and left standing on the street, in the rain.”  Osgood took back the glass that Kate, beer sipped, offered back to her.

 

“So we went to the pub and had a proper drink.  We managed to keep in touch a bit, exchanged Christmas cards… and then in the January I was sent for again.”  Kate, who up to this point had looked as relaxed and calm as McGillop had ever seen her, now looked slightly haunted and the way she had caught her lip between her teeth made him think she was… nervous, no, pained by whatever was about to come next in the story.  Before he could try to think of anything to say however, Osgood had taken over again.

 

“Kate was offered a job - Home Office Liaison to UNIT.  Skipping past the detail…” Osgood shot McGillop a warning look that told him not to pick her up on the unusual statement - rarely did Osgood skip past detail, “...Kate started working in Whitehall, and was very good at it, so… Easter I think?” Osgood waited to see if Kate wanted to take over the story again.

 

“Start of May, after the Easter school holidays, I started working for UNIT full time.”

 

“At the Tower?”

 

“No, Geneva.  What Os has tried to edit out was that my then husband, was and is, a Whitehall civil servant who didn’t particularly appreciate having a wife with better Ministerial access than he did.  Gordy was now in his first year at senior school and eager to try boarding so when T…” Kate caught herself when she almost said her ex-husband’s name, only to smile wryly as, lacking in any other obvious alternative name that would mean anything to McGillop, corrected herself, “...so when The Doofus started making things difficult, it was better for Gordy and UNIT, if I wasn’t in Whitehall as much.  So I started going to Geneva more - when I was away, Gordy either boarded for the week at his school or stayed over with his best friend, if it was a last minute trip.  By the Easter holidays, it was clear that my marriage wasn’t going to survive my job and... “

 

“And you’re a Lethbridge-Stewart, so UNIT was where you belonged?” guessed McGillop, unable to imagine what it must have been like for Kate.

 

“Something like that,” agreed Kate, starting to look a little less haunted as he helped them move the story on.  “So during the Easter holidays, Gordy and I moved in with my father and when term started Gordy went back to school as a boarder and I went to work full time in Geneva for UNIT.”

 

“And UNIT’s lawyers went to work on the Doofus,” muttered Osgood, earning her another non-too-gentle elbow in the ribs from Kate.  “What?  They did!  And I for one am grateful,” said Osgood decisively, nodding her head to emphasise her point with such vigour that she had to resettle her glasses on her nose when she’d finished nodding.

 

“How did your son cope?” asked McGillop carefully, wondering how the situation must have affected him - he knew from the twins’ reactions that children didn’t cope well if they saw discord between their parents, so he doubted that an eleven or twelve year old boy, even one semi-protected from day-to-day issues by being away at boarding school, would be completely oblivious.

 

“He was fine, especially when my father promised to go with him when he needed help with ‘boys stuff’.”

 

“Boys stuff?” Osgood didn’t think she’d ever heard this bit of the story.

 

“Let me guess, first jock strap?” 

 

“Yes, and cricket box… my father also taught him how to shave… and a few other things I’m sure.”

 

“He sounds…” McGillop wasn’t quite sure how to express himself, especially given that this had all happened more than a decade ago, but as good as her son’s reaction appeared to have been, he couldn’t help feeling that there was something he wasn’t getting about the situation.

 

“You did know my ex-husband isn’t Gordy’s father?” asked Kate, perceptively realising that McGillop was struggling with something, and having a pretty good idea what it was.

 

“No…”

 

“Gordy was born in 1990, I got married, to not-his-father,” Kate really felt she should try and not call her ex the nickname the rest of her family favoured, but that didn’t stop Osgood helpfully stage-whispering ‘the Doofus’, “in 1997.  He wasn’t very experienced with young children… I’m sure it would have been different, if Gordy had been older.”  Which, thought McGillop astutely as Kate accepted the offer of Osgood’s beer again, was a very diplomatic way of saying that the Doofus had liked to tell people he was a husband and father but not actually invest much energy or effort in being one.  “We were divorced in August 2004, two months after I’d moved to Geneva.”  And four months after you’d moved out, calculated McGillop silently, having a vague feeling that short timeframe was probably courtesy of the UNIT lawyers, who were apparently even more ferocious than Troop.  Feeling like a heavy silence was in danger of falling over them again, and not certain his son, who still looked to be comfortably fast asleep in Kate’s lap, could be telepathically willed to burp again as a mood breaker, McGillop risked teasing Osgood instead.

 

“And you swept her off her feet in the September?”

 

“October, and I didn’t sweep…” protested Osgood, blushing at his implication, however she was also relieved he’d stepped in to help keep Kate from dwelling on what was, as far as Osgood could remember from what Kate had shared at the time, a rather bleak and lonely time for the blonde as her marriage was mechanistically dismantled in London.

 

“She swept…” corrected Kate, twisting her head around enough to be able to place a haphazard kiss on whatever bit of Osgood’s face she could reach, which turned out to be her jaw, “...and I refuse to be any soppier than we’ve already been on the subject.”  Amused at their antics but also recognising the not very subtle hint from Kate that he wasn’t going to get the details of how exactly their clearly close friendship developed into something more, McGillop obediently moved on.

 

“So you’ve been together since October 2004?”

 

“Pretty much,” agreed Osgood, nodding happily as she gave Kate’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

 

“Wow...uh…” McGillop suddenly paled, “Osgood, I’m so very, very sorry.”

 

“I’m not that bad!” protested Kate, thinking he was making comment on how long Osgood had put up with Kate, only to be ‘shushed’ by Osgood, who had a much better idea as to what McGillop was actually talking about.  Confused, but trusting Osgood’s instincts, Kate did settle back down quietly, once more relaxed against her girlfriend, although she did keep a slightly suspicious eye on him, waiting to see where this went.

 

“You weren’t to know, and I didn’t correct you.”

 

“No, but…” 

 

“Don’t worry.  It was fun actually, and you did give me an idea or two.”

 

“What are you talking about?” asked Kate, finally unable to contain her curiosity any longer, intrigued by this insight she was getting into the friendship between her girlfriend and McGillop.

 

“When I came back, uh, that is…”  Osgood stumbled over her words as she failed to find a way of describing her Zygon related absence, so just started in a new place, knowing Kate would fill in the blank.  “In our lab…” only to start squirming in embarrassment, as she remembered what had happened.

 

“She was a bit giddy one day,” explained McGillop, grinning at his friend’s squirming, “and I might have offered some suggestions…”

 

“Lectured me more like,” corrected Osgood, re positioning her glasses and looking indignant, “gave me unsolicited advice on first dates that, what was the phrase you used?” Osgood was determined to get her own back, with Kate as her audience. 

 

“The last first date you'll ever go on,” admitted McGillop sheepishly, taking a noisy slurp of his pint and trying to find any sort of telepathic link to his son - now was a really, really good time to wake up and save Daddy from a ‘Stewart-ing’.

 

“That was fighting talk, Dr McGillop…” observed Kate mildly, making the younger scientist fidget nervously, clearly expecting her to let rip, only for Kate to completely wrong-foot him by smiling and continuing in a much warmer, friendly voice “...thank you.”

 

“You don’t know whether my advice was any help, not that it matters mind…” McGillop was now blushing - he had no idea why he was being thanked, he was certain that his advice wouldn’t have been remotely useful and now, knowing quite how long ago their actual first date had been, well, he was feeling rather foolish.

 

“Doesn’t matter what the advice was, just… thank you for being there to give it.”

 

“But…”

 

“I don’t have many friends McGillop…” admitted Osgood softly, raising her glass in a quiet toast to him.

 

“That makes two of us Os…”  He’d never before tried shortening her name, and, seeing Kate’s frown and Osgood’s wince, he vowed never to try doing it again, understanding what he’d accidentally intruded on, “...Osgood.  Friends?” He reached forward with his nearly empty beer glass.

 

“Friends,” confirmed Osgood, clinking her glass against his before finishing the dregs of the beer.

 

“I think it’s my round, if you have the time?” asked McGillop, conscious that they might have had other plans for the day.

 

“Kate?” Osgood turned to ask Kate what she felt like doing, only to see her wave in the direction of the door, having missed her question.  Turning to look in that direction, she saw the heads of Max and Gordy, who was looking much better than when she’d seen him very briefly at breakfast, threading through the crowd.

 

“Mum!  What’s that?” asked Gordy, arriving at the table first, not immediately noticing McGillop but seeing Oliver in her lap.

 

“A small infant male, asleep.  Say hello to McGillop, Gordy,” said Kate, confident Gordy would recognise the name but not sure if they’d ever met.

 

“Hello again…” said Gordy easily, reaching out to shake hands with McGillop who had stood up, not sure whether to greet Kate’s son or rescue his own.  “...we met at the Tower I think?  I was meeting Osgood?”

 

“That’s right.  Good to see you again, Happy New Year.  Your mother’s helped me out with my son…”

 

“Happy New Year! She’s good at that - claims it was my fault she got so much practice!”

 

“Were you a noisy child?”

 

“Not particularly,” shrugged Gordy, having never really considered it, “at least, you’ve never said anything Mum?”

 

“You made an ordinary amount of noise.  Where’s Max?”

 

“Gone to get some drinks - sorry McGillop, we didn’t know you were here…” Gordy glanced at the table and saw the last bit in his glass, “...Draught Bitter?”

 

“London Pride, but I was about to…”

 

“Don’t worry about it, Max’s paying.  I’ll go tell him and help him carry.”  And, with a lazy grin that McGillop realised was an exact copy of his mother’s (not that McGillop got to see that many genuine grins from his Boss at work), Gordy threaded his way through the crowd to the bar.

 

“Looks like you’re stuck with the whole family now McGillop, unless you’d like to escape?”  asked Osgood even as she was carefully extracting Kate’s coat from behind them so that she could fold it with hers and put them on the floor, creating more room on the sofa for Max or Gordy… somehow she didn’t think McGillop would feel brave enough!

 

“If you’re sure?  I mean…” McGillop looked nervously at Oli, who was still fast asleep, clearly very comfortable lying across Kate’s lap, his head supported by the crook of her arm and his feet resting in Osgood’s lap.

 

“He’s fine, I’m fine holding him.  Do you have a bottle for him?” asked Kate, not remembering seeing one in the baby bag when she’d been finding some dry clothes.

 

“Yes…” McGillop reached into the pocket of his coat which was hanging on the back of his chair, and produced the bottle, “...Fran made sure I came out with a couple.” At which point he produced a second, from the other pocket. “But he’d had a big feed right before we came out for our walk.” Which, thought Kate, explained why they’d arrived in the pub with Oli screaming his head off and McGillop looking terrified.  It also explained why he’d had wanted to sit up in her lap and, after filling his nappy (accompanied by some inevitable wind), had settled down for a nap, interrupted by the occasional burp or hiccup.

 

“Then when Max comes back with the drinks, we can send him back to the bar to get that warmed.”

 

“You keep saying ‘Max’ like I know him…”  Despite trying to remember every conversation he’d had with Osgood about her ‘family life’ with Kate (and he was reasonably confident that today’s conversation had increased his total conversation time on this subject by a factor of ten at least), McGillop was struggling to come up with a possible candidate.

 

“You do.  Captain Stewart?  Sometimes commands Troop when we’re out?” asked Osgood, knowing she probably shouldn’t be enjoying her friend’s discomfort quite so much.

 

“Oh, uh…” McGillop thought for a moment, trying to mentally sort through all of the various soldiers he vaguely remembered dealing with, usually to tell them to get out of his way when he was trying to test or measure something when they were out in the field. “...Tall guy?  Quite big, even by Troop’s standards?”

 

“You mean looks like he’s lost his rugby team?” joked Kate, knowing that Max was actually a bit smaller than his father had been, not that they’d ever managed to stand back to back to confirm her suspicion.

 

“Yeah, but he’s still got his nose and ears.”

 

“Much to my relief!” agreed Kate, laughing.  “Anyway, you can make him go and get a bottle ready for Oli - he’s quite used to it, has lots of little cousins.”  Which was true, knew Osgood, but she also knew Kate’s sense of humour and that he’d be on his best behaviour following his lapse the day before.

 

“Ah, uh… oh, thanks Gordy.”  Much to his relief, McGillop was saved from responding to Kate by the timely arrival of Gordy, with their drinks.

 

“Thank Max - he’s just bringing yours over Mum.  Go easy on him?”

 

“Maybe.  How are you feeling?”

 

“Much better… but I’m having ginger beer for now.”

 

“Good idea… it could have been much worse Gordy.”

 

“I know Mum, and Max does understand… just… leave off him, alright?  He didn’t do it.”

 

“Does he know who did?”

 

“Yes, and it’s being dealt with,” said Gordy, flashing a smile at the pretty girls on the table next to them as one of them was leaving, enabling him to grab a couple of spare chairs for him and Max to sit on.  “But don’t ask about it, ok?”

 

“Why?  What’s going on?”  Even as she was cross-examining Gordy, Kate was automatically starting to deal with a gradually waking Oli as she stopped him kicking Osgood.

 

“Something that Gordy’s Mum can know but the UNIT Head is better left in the dark about?” guessed Osgood, having a mini-epiphany and realising what had happened.

 

“Yeah.  You know what happened, don’t you?” asked Gordy, visibly relaxing when Osgood joined in the conversation - if there was one person who could stop his mother going nuclear, either professionally or personally, it was her.

 

“You accepted the Troop’s Ultimatum, didn’t you?” she guessed, remembering the name from one of Max’s stories from when he’d first transferred to the UNIT Troop.

 

“If that’s what it’s called, yes.  Tasted nice, considering, almost fruity…”

 

“What’s the Troop’s Ultimatum?” asked McGillop, feeling a bit like a spectator at a tennis match as he looked from Gordy to Osgood, each turn of his head enabling him to glance at Kate, whose expression was, to him at least, unreadable.

 

“A cocktail, very alcoholic… actually, we should get Max to bring one to the lab for analysis…”  Kate gently encouraged Osgood to return to the point with an affectionate but effectively placed elbow nudge.  “Sorry… as far as I can tell, they try to get a pint of liquid in the same colour as the UNIT beret, having first of all put quite a lot of spirits in it.”

 

“How do they get the colour?” McGillop was fascinated, not only at this insight into the Troop’s sub-culture within UNIT, but also that Osgood had clearly been allowed into it at some point.

 

“Cranberry juice, bourbon and grapefruit juice primarily.”

 

“Could be worse,” said McGillop - actually, compared to some of the stunts his university’s rugby club got up to, that seemed rather tame, even after the inclusion of at least a week’s worth of recommended alcohol intake.

 

“Not if you’re allergic to grapefruit juice,” explained Gordy, filling in the missing link for McGillop, who immediately winced, “and you drink the whole pint because you can’t taste the grapefruit.”

 

“Gordy…” groaned Kate, accepting the offered caterpillar from him when he noticed that Oli was now sitting upright in her lap, blinking sleepily, clearly trying to decide whether he needed to declare he was awake with a good scream.  Fortunately, the brightly coloured caterpillar made him feel at home, especially when Osgood helped him find the squeaker.

 

“I’m fine Mum, and it’s not Max’s fault.”

 

“He knows about the grapefruit juice.”

 

“Yes, and he’d told Troop no Ultimatums.  It wasn’t his fault I drank one anyway… look,” Gordy glanced nervously at McGillop, “just drop it? Please?  I’m fine, and Max sorted it.”

 

“But…” Anything more Kate might have been going to say died on her lips.  With baited breath, Gordy watched as his mother closed her mouth, visibly swallowed and slowly blinked, twice, before, looking much more relaxed, she smiled and said, “...what’s the ginger beer like?”

 

“Gingery…” Gordy took another, cautious sip and absently ran his fingers over his chin, as if stroking an imaginary beard, causing Osgood to chuckle, remembering Kate’s earlier assessment of his early attempts at beard growing.

 

“It  _ is _ Ginger Beer Gord…” said a new voice, placing a clutch of glasses on the table.

 

“Funny… don’t sit down.”

 

“Okay…” Frozen in a crouched position, poised to sit down on the vacant chair but heeding his brother’s request, Max asked, “...I know this isn’t so that Osgood can admire my butt… what’s the matter?”

 

“Baby Oli needs his bottle warming,” said Osgood, still looking slightly disturbed by his suggestion that she’d appreciate that part of his anatomy.

 

“Baby Who?” Confused, Max turned to look at Osgood, only to have his attention attracted by Oli who, with Kate’s help, had started giggling at the sound his caterpillar was making.  “Oh, baby you!  Where’d you come from?” asked Max, reaching across Osgood and holding out his finger for Oli to grab, which he did, and immediately tried to suck it.

 

“His father, you know McGillop?  Shares my lab?” prompted Osgood, directing the still not quite sat down Max to look in the direction of McGillop who, now she thought about it, was suddenly looking like he didn’t know where to look.

 

“Hi McGillop, I’m Max…” With his left hand still being investigated by Oli, Max reached out with his right hand to shake McGillop’s instinctively proffered one, “...actually, I think I owe you an apology…”

 

“You do?” Kate was surprised, she hadn’t really thought that McGillop and Max might know each other, or at least know each other well enough for her son to not only owe an apology but be negligent in giving it.

 

“Ah, yeah.  At least, I think it was you.”  Max thought for a moment, rather forgetting that he was thinking aloud in front of the UK Head of UNIT, “yeah, two, no three weeks ago?  The Boss moved rather quickly to avoid some ‘friends’ and my guys had to…” he trailed off as he saw McGillop smiling rather nervously as he self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck.

 

“Put the geek in the middle of the ruck?”

 

“That’s one way of describing it…” agreed Max, wincing, although McGillop wasn’t sure if it was the memory of that rather unexpected Thursday afternoon or the sudden realisation that Kate was in earshot.

 

“It’s ok, the bruises have gone.”

 

“Good, I’m sorry about that.”

 

“Don’t worry, it’s protocol, I understand.”  Just past Max, McGillop was conscious that Kate, who was somewhat restricted in her ability to move by Oli sat in her lap and Osgood’s arm around her shoulders, was struggling to contain either her curiosity or, more probably, her fury.  “And unlike the schoolyard, your guys do follow the rules - no biting or gouging.”

 

“What on earth are you talking about? Max, get your arse out of my face!” 

 

“Sorry Os…”  With a final, friendly squeeze, Max let go of McGillop’s hand and sat down on the chair next to Osgood, his finger still being held hostage by a fascinated Oli, although not for long, as Kate gently intervened and effected separation, enabling Max to reclaim his hand and flex his shoulder.  “Thanks.  Has she told you about what happened?”

 

“When?” Osgood frowned as she attempted to remember what Max was suggesting, only to realise that she couldn’t remember what she hadn’t been told, prompting her to turn her head to direct a rather pointed look at her girlfriend who, with a long-suffering sigh and her own, rather pointed look at Max, began to, very belatedly, explain.

 

“About ten days before Christmas, I’d been out delivering the ‘Christmas cards’….” which Osgood correctly interpreted as ‘conducting some interplanetary diplomacy’ with the dozen or so senior ranking alien diplomats that had, through long standing arrangements with UNIT, been given permission to visit Earth, and London specifically, during the festive season.  Gordy, having no idea what his mother or brother were talking about, nevertheless was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and his questions on hold until he could catch his brother or Osgood out of his mother’s earshot.  “...when some rather lost Xintarions confused me with… who was it Max?”

 

“Their tour rep.”  Experience had taught all of them that, whenever Kate Stewart was telling a story in that particular tone of voice, contributions should be kept short, factual, and precisely on topic, without editorialisation or unsolicited additional information.

 

“Who had been going to escort them back to their ship at the end of their visitor permit.”

 

“Where were you?”

 

“Parked on the double yellows outside Harvey Nicks….” 

 

“Ah.”  That, thought Osgood, meant the Roqurtings had arrived - two members of a rather fine boned, nitrogen breathing bi-pedal alien species who immediately descended, every year, on Harvey Nichols and proceeded to buy themselves new wardrobes.  Challenging in many ways, Representative Tronkrinkgrin (‘call me Tronkie’) and his gentleman companion Drinjkingroun (who Osgood could never quite manage to call Drinkie) were actually some of the easier visitors for Kate to deal with as they had the same taste in shoes… although whereas Kate usually paired her more vibrant kitten heels with dark suits, the Roqurtings favoured equally vibrant, stylish cocktail dresses.  “I was in Geneva.”

 

“Yes, so McGillop came with me, and was a particular hit with Drinkie.”

 

“Oh?” Osgood looked to McGillop, wondering what exactly Drinkie liked about him, as, well, McGillop wasn’t exactly Drinkie’s usual style, which, now she thought about it, was more usually Max.

 

“He liked my accent.  Wanted to put my larynx in Captain Stewart, er, Max.”

 

“Easy to do if you’re Roqurting,” said Osgood thoughtfully, considering the resultant effect and finding it hard to conceive, therefore missing Max’s look of horror as he realised that the suggestion hadn’t been as crazy and farfetched as he’d thought.

 

“But excluded under their residency permit, which Tronkie pointed out before I could.”

 

“How does that help?” Max was too experienced to have absolute faith in intergalactic visitors actually following the UNIT rules.

 

“If they violate their residency permit, well, put bluntly their credit cards stop working.  And as much as Drinkie might have taken a shine to you both…” explained Kate, remembering Drinkie’s reaction when Tronkie had quickly taken him to one side of the personal shopper private lounge they were meeting in to explain why they were not going to misbehave, “...he had taken a shine to some orange suede stillettos even more.”

 

“Sounds like Drinkie,” agreed Osgood, taking a sip of her beer, “let me guess, electric blue dress?”

 

“Fuschia actually,” volunteered McGillop suddenly, before quickly gulping down some beer.

 

“Anyway, having finished with them, we were heading back to the car when…” Kate paused, trying to remember what happened, “what did actually happen Max?”

 

“Umm…” Slightly panicked, Max glanced between McGillop and Osgood, wondering if either of them would help him out.

 

“Wait, did you say Xintarions?” It would appear, based on Osgood’s interruption, that Max’s luck was temporarily holding.

 

“Yes.  Why?”

 

“Oh thank heavens.  Well done Max.”  Osgood raised her beer in salute to Max who wasn’t quite prepared to believe he’d escaped his mother’s wrath, but was beginning to feel hopeful.

 

“Os?”  Kate was confused - what was it that she couldn’t remember about Xintarions that she should have.

 

“Xintarions’ permits to visit also require them to be silent when within earshot of Humans…”

 

“...because their voiceboxes produce sounds audible only to dogs,” remembered Kate, having had the prompt from Osgood.

 

“So how do they communicate?” asked Gordy, fascinated.

 

“With each other? They’re also able to sustain telepathic connections with a small number of their own kind, so they’re only permitted to travel in small groups.”

 

“Sounds ok so far.  What were they going to do to Mum?”

 

“Spit in her…” McGillop waved his hand expressively, trying to convey where they would be directing the spit, “...as they would do had they identified their tour guide correctly, who in this case was a Trougouson…”

 

“They can communicate telepathically with the Xintarions and audibly with humans,” explained Osgood helpfully, knowing Gordy wouldn’t know what a Trougouson was.

 

“And the spit?”  Gordy was fascinated, especially when it seemed no one could look his mother in the eye other than Osgood.

 

“Down my shirt…” said Kate, everything clicking for her, finally, “down the open neck of my shirt Gordy, something even you never quite managed to do as a baby.”

 

“Why?  I mean,” corrected Gordy quickly, knowing what she was going to say if given half a chance, and he did not need embarrassing baby stories sharing today, “why do they spit there?” he asked, mimicking McGillop’s vague gesture.

 

“The Xintarions are, when visiting Earth, visually indecipherable if you are a Trougouson, as their distinguishing features are hidden by the generic tourist outfits they’re required to wear.”

 

“That’s UNIT speak for rucksacks and jeans?”  Gordy wanted to double check he was following Kate’s explanation, knowing he’d not get an opportunity to ask her to repeat herself.

 

“Pretty much.  So to compromise, they have developed a system of providing an identifying saliva-equivalent sample in conjunction with their telepathic greetings.”

 

“By spitting down Mum’s top?”

 

“By mimicking the ‘air kiss’ type greeting which allows them to get close enough to spit into the Trougouson’s sensor, which for some reason they elect to wear on their chests,” explained Max, remembering that detail from the briefing he’d had on them prior to their arrival.

 

“It’s…” Osgood was about to launch into an explanation as to why the sample was collected there, but saw McGillop shake his head and decided that, on reflection, maybe he was right, and Gordy didn’t need to know about the biology of the Trougouson in quite that much detail, “...a good thing Max intervened.  Did they find their tour rep?”

 

“Apparently so - they left on schedule the following day.  They really enjoyed themselves,” confirmed Max, relieved that he had so far survived the retelling.

 

“They fill out a planet feedback form or something?” asked Gordy, intending to tease his brother.

 

“Actually yes.  The information is very useful.”  Following his rather too close an encounter with them, McGillop had actually looked out for their feedback forms when they’d been processed, curious to know whether his bruises had been worth it.  “Apparently the current production of Wicked is enjoyable, but they still regret the closure of Cats and Starlight Express.”

 

“You’re not serious…” Kate was finding their feedback hard to accept.  “Is that what they said?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, that will have to be fed back to the Trougouson representative.”

 

“What will?  That they like musicals?” 

 

“No Gordy, we know they like musicals.  It’s that the Trougouson have failed again to recognise that the Xintarions like musicals but love Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Why were they taken to Wicked and not...whatever it is that’s on by that man?”

 

“Phantom of the Opera, and apparently we’ve already asked.”

 

“Good…sorry about the bruises, I had no idea…” Kate really was sorry - it was one of her frustrations, but the protocol written by Geneva was very, very explicit and she had reluctantly had to stop trying to persuade Troop that she wasn’t the President of the United States and she would really prefer it if, in the event she had to be ‘secured to her transport’ as the horribly written protocol required, could whoever she was with either be ‘secured’ with her or at least not flattened in the resultant stampede.  Unfortunately that was one battle she hadn’t been able to win.

 

“Doesn’t matter.”  McGillop hadn’t particularly minded at the time as they all knew the rules, and risk of accompanying Kate on her excursions, and, like he’d said to Max, he hadn’t been bitten or had his eyes gouged, so it was far less painful or damaging than when he’d been in the school playground.

 

“Max?”  

 

“Yes Os?”

 

“Since you and McGillop are already acquainted, could you go get Oli’s bottle warmed up please?”  Osgood looked pointedly at the baby bottle full of milk sitting on the table in front of them.

 

“Sure, be right back.”  As Max disappeared into the crowd of people between their table and the bar, Gordy looked thoughtfully in the general direction of his drink, but didn’t move to take it.

 

“Gordy?  Everything ok?”

 

“Mmm?  Oh, yes Mum, fine.”  He smiled reassuringly at Kate before turning to McGillop and, in the absence of a better idea, asked bluntly, “you do know he’s my brother not my boyfriend?” which was unfortunately timed as, for the second time that afternoon, McGillop found himself with a mouthful of beer but this time, unlike previously, Oli was pre-occupied with his caterpillar and sat in Kate’s lap, which meant his lap was defenseless.  “I’ll take that as a no then…” observed Gordy thoughtfully as he waited for McGillop to finish coughing, wondering what was making Osgood smile like that, something Kate had also spotted…  why was her girlfriend smiling like that?

  
  


* * *

 

 

“You’re not mad are you?” 

 

“Am I supposed to be?”  Confused by Kate’s question, Osgood looked up and, deciding that her boots were probably clean enough, stepped into the house and shut the front door, only remembering after she’d pushed the bolt across that the boys still had to come home.

 

“I…” Kate paused whilst she wrestled with a stubborn boot which took a bit of effort to pull off, only to take most of her sock with it. “...don’t know…” she sighed, ignoring her sock and instead tackling the other boot, which obligingly yielded immediately. “Why are you looking at me like that?”  Boot still in her hand, sock forgotten, Kate Stewart looked at her girlfriend critically, trying to reconcile what she had thought she was going to see with what she was seeing.

 

“Because I’m me and you’re you?” suggested Osgood calmly, not looking down as she toed off her boots easily, “and no, it’s not a conspiracy against you, I just have more practice.”  Many others would have, in making that point, sounded sanctimonious or smug but Osgood, being Osgood, it was just a simple, factual statement based on a sound theory and backed up with evidence.  Every day that she’d come into this house, she’d stood on the doormat, unlaced her boots and toed them off, before picking them up and placing them neatly under the table that today, still had the vaseful of holly and mistletoe sprigs on it.

 

“But…” 

 

“I’ll only be mad about you deciding to go into the Tower tomorrow if you don’t let me come with you.  I’m just as behind on my paperwork as you.”  As Osgood spoke, she took off her duffle coat and shook it gently so that when she hung it on the hook in a moment it would hang tidily.

 

“I’d hoped you might you have time to have lunch with me?” asked Kate, thinking that the Tower would be sufficiently deserted that not only would she get some work done, but she might actually be left in peace by everyone else long enough to plan a lunch break.

 

“I have time to have lunch with you.”  Smiling in confirmation, Osgood hung up her coat and then took the couple of steps forward that she needed in order to no longer be stood on the doormat and to be in range of Kate.  “So if I’m not mad about going to the Tower tomorrow…” continued Osgood conversationally, extracting the boot that Kate had forgotten about from her increasingly slack grasp, “...and I accept your lunch invitation…” she bent down and picked up the other boot, “...but, according to you I’m supposed to be mad…” Kate’s boots gathered in one hand, Osgood gestured for her somewhat befuddled girlfriend to take off and handover her coat, “...then I can only assume that you plan to spend what remains of the afternoon…” Coat in one hand, boots in the other, Osgood quickly put Kate’s boots neatly under the side table next to her own and hung the coat next to her own, “...in the greenhouse.”

 

“Why would I do that?” asked Kate, sitting down on the next to bottom step in preparation for straightening her sock.

 

“I don’t know…” admitted Osgood honestly, deciding that the hall would be more welcoming with the table lamp turned on, which meant it was now much easier to see Kate’s confused expression in the warm, creamy-yellow glow of the lamplight, prompting her to take the couple more steps needed so that she was stood at the bottom of the stairs, “...but I can’t think what else you could be about to do that would make me mad.”  Spotting a bit of leaf that was caught in Kate’s hair, she reached forward and gently teased it free from the ash blond strands, letting it drop to the hall carpet.  Seeing that, despite her care, she’d still managed to free some strands of hair from the loose twist Kate had favoured to keep her hair tidy in the breeze, Osgood reached forward again and tucked them behind her girlfriend’s ear, only to still her hand when Kate turned her face into it and softly pressed a kiss to the palm. 

 

Unclear what was going on with Kate, but sensing that her presence was helpful and wanted, not resented, Osgood took another half step so she was now stood with her toes touching the base of the stairs, standing between Kate’s outstretched legs, both hands resting lightly on the back of her lover’s shoulders, at the base of her neck.  After a moment’s still silence, Kate let her head tip forward, resting it against the soft, warmth of Osgood’s sweater and her arms wrapped around her legs, effectively holding Osgood close.  Still completely at a loss as to what was happening, Osgood was content to stand where she was being held and began to, in what she hoped would be soothing and comforting, sketch lazy circles across the back of Kate’s neck with her thumbs.  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asked quietly, rhetorically, not intending to rush Kate into answering - she was, within pragmatic reason, content to stand there as long as she physically could, if that was what it took for Kate to start talking.  

 

“I’m a silly fool…” muttered Kate eventually, punctuating her comment with an audible, decidedly out-of-character sniff, which told Osgood she’d been crying.

 

“Perhaps,” agreed Osgood calmly, her fingers continuing their haphazard stroking pattern across Kate’s neck, “but you’re my silly fool, you idiotic thing...” declared Osgood affectionately, still at a total loss as to what had brought on this little crisis in her girlfriend’s normally unshakeable confidence.

 

“Selfish old thing you mean…” mumbled Kate, still not lifting her head.

 

“Hey!” Protested Osgood, stopping her stroking and instead tickling the top of Kate’s neck at the hairline, triggering an instinctive jerk that meant Kate’s head lifted up enough for Osgood to actually see her face, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, so you will need to explain yourself properly…” she put her finger over Kate’s lips, stopping her from interrupting her, “...but I want to remind you that, in your words, I swept.”  She smiled at the memory, “I swept the first chance I could, once you were free of the Doofus.  And I’m still here.  So…” Deciding she could trust Kate not to interrupt her, she removed her finger, but continued to hold her hand to Kate’s cheek, “...that makes us silly old fools together, which....” she pressed a tender, practically chaste kiss on her girlfriend’s frown-wearing forehead, “...even with all of space and time to pick from, is where I want to be.”

 

“You’re sweeping again…” said Kate, smiling in spite of her watering eyes, still feeling like she wanted Osgood to be angry with her but unable to ignore the sincerity and warmth in her words and own smile.

 

“As far as the sitting room?” asked Osgood, accompanying her unexpected non-sequiteur with a slight wince as she tried to flex her knee, suspecting that Kate was finding the stair probably just as uncomfortable, especially after the rather oddly padded sofa at the pub.  Seeing her girlfriend hesitate, she added, “I still don’t understand why I’m supposed to be cross with you, but do know I can be this confused in the sitting room, where we can be comfortable?”

 

“Your knee…” Kate looked pained, and moved her hand to the knee that had never quite been the same again since Osgood’s one and only attempt at snowboarding.

 

“...is fine.  Come on.” And, with a demonstration knee bend, Osgood pulled a compliant Kate up and then walked to the sitting room to turn on a light, leaving her bemused girlfriend standing in the hall, ordering her thoughts and, now she was standing up, getting feeling back in her bottom.

 

“I’m sorry I got upset that you weren’t mad,” said Kate, starting to sound a little bit more like herself when she walked into the sitting room a few minutes later, to find that Osgood had turned on a couple of side lamps and had put a match to the fire that presumably Max had left laid in the fireplace.

 

“I could still be mad…” pointed out Osgood reasonably, relieved that whatever had shaken Kate up was appearing to be passing, but still wanting an explanation, “...once I understand what you were thinking on my behalf,” she said pointedly, sitting down in the middle of the couch, leaving room on either side of her for Kate should she wish, although there were two armchairs should Kate prefer distance.  

 

“I deserve that,” agreed Kate, eying the end of the couch warily, “can I sit there?” she asked cautiously, not quite sure where she stood with Osgood, but pleased to see a permissive nod.  Much to her relief, once she was sat down, Osgood tossed a cushion onto her lap and proceeded to swivel around so that she was soon lying stretched out along the couch, her head on the cushion in Kate’s lap, her legs stretched out along the couch, knee resting on another strategically placed cushion she’d previously failed to spot.

 

“You smiled…” began Kate finally, her fingers distractedly playing with strands of her girlfriend’s hair that had spilled across the cushion, “...when Gordy’s little announcement surprised McGillop.  You smiled a smile I didn’t understand… it wasn’t the smile you have when you’re not quite laughing… and it wasn’t the smile you have when you’re trying not to show what you really think…and then they, the boys and McGillop, started talking, are still talking about whatever it is they’re talking about.  I hadn’t realised how young McGillop is...or maybe how old the boys are…” Kate trailed off, her fingers stilling in Osgood’s hair as her thoughts wandered.

 

“You do realise McGillop’s the same age as me?” checked Osgood, not sure how much Kate actually knew about her fellow senior scientific advisor.

 

“Is he?”  Kate looked down at her girlfriend in surprise, “I’d assumed he was younger.”

 

“Technically he is, by a couple of months.” Osgood tried to work out what it was about McGillop that had made Kate conclude he was younger than her, “he didn’t meet his wife until he was almost 30.  The twins were a honeymoon surprise I think.”

 

“We’d been together for three years by then.”

 

“Nearer four… I was about the same age as the boys are now when I came to visit you, that first time after the paperwork was complete.”  Whilst she used the word ‘divorce’ if it came up in conversation with other people, Osgood had always described Kate’s divorce as ‘the paperwork’ when it was just the two of them alone together - like she was refusing to let even the shadow of her ex-husband from falling on their relationship.  “Actually,” continued Osgood, developing her point further now she’d thought about it a bit more, “you were about the same age then as I am now.”

 

“When I was that age, Gordy was one…” Kate lapsed into silence, her gaze locked on the fire, which was emitting the occasional pop and hiss as the coal got hot and the logs settled into the flames.

 

“If the boys have kids, we’d be grandmas…” realised Osgood, surprising herself with how comfortable she was saying that out loud, “...though you would have to teach me how to change a nappy.”  This rather unexpected admission managed to distract Kate’s attention from the flickering fire and look down at her love, whose glasses were rather askew.

 

“First rule of being a grandmother…” Kate gently removed Osgood’s glasses and put them on her stomach - in reach if needed, safely out of the way whilst not, “...according to my mother and step-mother, is that nappies are not part of the contract.”

 

“But we can change the rules, right?” Kate was surprised at her girlfriend’s persistence on this point, but took the question seriously.

 

“Of course we can.”  Kate thought of all the rules they’d changed, broken or re-negotiated in the last decade or so, “why stop doing something we’re so good at?” 

 

“Mmm…” Osgood had been examining what Kate had said, reviewing her words like they were pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, turning them every-which-way to see what was their most probable position, their most likely final location, and finally she felt confident enough to guess at what the overall picture might be.  “...did I ever tell you I didn’t want children?”

 

“No…” Kate looked at Osgood in amazement, “...you’re sure?  I mean, you’re not just saying that..”

 

“...because you saw me smile weirdly at a man my age with three children under ten who was still laughing and joking with our boys when you and I came home?”

 

“Yes, no, how…”  Osgood reached up and ran her fingertip down Kate’s cheek, effectively silencing Kate’s confusion, her aim surprisingly accurate given she wasn’t wearing her glasses, but then she would claim to be able to recognise Kate in the dark by touch alone, so familiar was her lover’s face to her.

 

“Because I’m me and you’re you.”  There really was, as far as Osgood was concerned, no other explanation.

 

“But that smile…”  Kate’s voice told Osgood that her girlfriend was still rather confused, so, reaching for her glasses, Osgood carefully sat up and turned sideways, so that she was sitting next to Kate, able to easily hold her gaze with her own.

 

“I was trying not to burp.”

 

“What?”  Of everything Kate had been bracing herself for, that was not one of the options she’d considered.

 

“It was a regular smile - Gordy was being cheeky, McGillop was being clumsy - I was happy, and trying not to burp.”

 

“You’re sure?”  As relieved as Kate was by the very straightforward explanation, she was still uncertain.

 

“Positive.  I think my days of drinking three and a bit pints of beer in the afternoon are officially over…” admitted Osgood, ironically finishing her statement with a delicate, almost ladylike...burp.  “And no, that wasn’t deliberate,” she added, her blushing not caused by burping in front of Kate (they’d overcome that particularly delicacy in their relationship about 6 months into their relationship, when Osgood arrived one Friday night feeling a bit under the weather and by 3am on Saturday morning was being seen by a UNIT doctor who confirmed it was flu with the complication of food poisoning from the in-flight meal), but by the coincidence of her burping at the end of her explanation.

 

“You didn’t want children?”

 

“No…”

 

“You never said anything.” Kate was certain on that point.

 

“No, I know.”

 

“Why?”  It wasn’t accusatory, just curiosity - after all, Kate was hardly in a position to lecture on the topic, having been rather surprised with Gordy and adopting Max in somewhat challenging and almost unimaginable circumstances.  She had certainly not set out in life with the ‘2.4 children’ plan, whatever that might have been.

 

“Why didn’t I want children? Or why didn’t I say anything?” Osgood didn’t want to answer the wrong question and create further confusion.

 

“Why didn’t you say anything? Both? I…” At a loss, Kate’s voice just died on her - if she was honest, she didn’t know what she know, or why, although the latter would, in part perhaps, help her cope with her realisation that, in almost eleven years of loving and being loved by this wonderful, fascinating, unique woman who, in Kate’s view, put up with far more nonsense in her life as a result of her personal and professional association with Kate than was ever reasonable to expect, Kate was realising she’d never actually asked what Osgood thought about children.

 

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how to tell you in a way that you would understand, not…” Osgood put her finger on Kate’s lips to stop her interrupting, “...not because I was worried you would pressurise me, or argue, but because I didn’t know how to explain I already loved Gordy, then Gordy and Max, almost as much as I loved you.”  Osgood removed her finger and entwined her fingers with Kate’s, resting their joined hands in Kate’s lap. “I realised, after I’d finished my PhD, that my picture of my life didn’t include me being pregnant.  I watched my sister glow and be radiant and…” Osgood winced, “...all I could see was the terror of having this massive responsibility for this life whose existence was in my gift…” she smiled sadly, avoiding Kate’s gaze, “...it was a gift I decided I could never be strong enough to give.  Look how wrong I was about that…” Not wanting to go off down that particular (well travelled) emotional tangent, she took a deep breath and Kate watched, fascinated, as she saw her girlfriend’s smile transform from one of sadness to a wry, smirk-like grin that, when Osgood turned her head to look at Kate once more, was accompanied by mischievously dancing eyes, “not to mention the whole pain of childbirth...and the audience!”  Osgood’s mock shudder had Kate smiling in spite of the emotional weight of their conversation.

 

“I didn’t give birth in Piccadilly Circus…”

 

“No, but all those exams, and people!”  Osgood’s shudder this time actually made Kate laugh - Osgood was, as Kate herself knew from wonderful first-hand experience, far from prudish or conservative, but she was fairly reserved and modest.

 

“They’re all looking for a reason…” pointed out Kate, knowing she was stating the obvious, “and I’d never thought of it like that…” she continued, trying to consider all the various physical examinations she had had during the course of her pregnancy from the perspective Osgood had clearly taken, “...I suppose it was good practice for the birth…” It’ was Kate’s turn to shudder, “...It was rather different then, and no…” she raised an eyebrow pointedly at Osgood, having correctly anticipated a possible interruption, “...I’m not making a point about my age, promise.  I remember...just accepting what the doctors told me to do.  ‘Doctor’ knew best, and the ‘best’ then was quite a lot of drugs.  It’s all very different now…” Kate looked Osgood in the eye and, extracting her hand from the tangle of their hands in her lap, reached forward and caught a stray strand of hair which she tucked behind Osgood’s ear, “...and I understand, what you mean, about the difference between loving a child and having the child yourself…you’re not him...”  she leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss on her girlfriend’s nose, “...you’re not him, never could be him…” she repeated, also understanding what, even now, Osgood wouldn’t, couldn’t say about ‘the Doofus’ and how that had meant she said nothing.  “I should have asked…”

 

“When?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“When?  When should you have asked?” 

 

“I don’t know, sometime in the last eleven years maybe?”

 

“If it had been important, you’d have asked, or I’d have said,” decided Osgood straightforwardly.

 

Kate’s instinct was to protest to such a straightforward solution for such a potentially life-changing topic’s non-discussion, but, from experience, she forced herself to properly analyse and consider what her girlfriend was actually suggesting, what she knew they had discussed over the years that was equally life-changing, and why they’d discussed it when they had.

 

“ _ If _ it had been important…” repeated Kate thoughtfully, studying Osgood intently.

 

“I love Gordy and Max, have from the very beginning…” And that, to Osgood, was what mattered - she loved the boys and loved being their family with Kate.  She’d found that, without thinking about it, she could enjoy having children without  _ having  _ the children.  “And I love you.”

 

“I know, I’ve always known that you loved the boys…” Kate smiled, a long, languid, relaxed smile that few ever saw outside her family, “...I love you...have from the very beginning too.”

 

“I know, when I swept..” teased Osgood, trying to ignore the building pain in her knee that was starting to protest to being bent before it had finished recovering from their walk and being stood on in one place for too long.

 

“Of course we knew...” agreed Kate, pulling Osgood towards her, knowing that sitting with her knee bent so sharply wasn’t going to be comfortable for her but also feeling like they didn’t need to be so far away from each other, now fully understanding what her lover’s point was, “...because it was important…”  

 

“Mmmm….very important...” agreed Osgood as she allowed herself to tip sideways, bracing herself with her arms on the couch armrest and back, either side of Kate.  No longer needing to encourage Osgood to change position, and having the presence of mind to toss aside the cushion that was still in her lap and remove those glasses once again, Kate was more than happy to help them tumble gently sideways so that they were lying haphazardly along the couch.  Finally, when their legs were outstretched and entwined as, fingers threading and tangling through rapidly undoing hair, their mouths met in a continuation of their  _ important  _ discussion, trading kisses and quiet murmurs of love and affection.

 

* * *

  
  
  


“Mum?  Os?” called out Max, shutting the front door behind Gordy whose hands were full of the bags of Chinese take-away that comprised a ‘family’ order for the four of them, with extra prawn crackers because everyone could always eat an extra cracker or two after an afternoon beer.

 

“In here!” responded Kate as Osgood obediently filled in the answer Kate had just worked out for 12 down.

 

“It fits, and I agree it’s the correct anagram, but I don’t get how it’s connected with the definition.”  The boys heard Osgood’s statement from the hall where, having quickly pulled off his coat, Max took the bags of food from Gordy so he could take his own coat off and hang both of them on the hooks in the hallway.

 

“They’re still doing the crossword then.”

 

“At this rate, they’ll still be doing it at Easter!” joked Gordy, as, their coats hung over Osgood’s and Kate’s, he followed Max into the sitting room.

 

“We heard that…” retorted Kate, accepting the kiss on the cheek that Max offered her, understanding it was his final, silent apology for his transgressions earlier in the day, “...sorry, we’ve not got anything ready…” she admitted, drawing the boys’ attention to the coffee table which was lacking in cutlery, plates and glasses, “...we were comfortable.”

 

“No worries…” Smiling at his mother, Gordy squeezed Osgood’s shoulder in greeting as he passed by the couch, causing her to look up from the crossword distractedly.

 

“Hello!  We should…”

 

“Stay right where you are Os, you’re fine…” advised Max, spotting the cushion tucked under her outstretched leg, supporting the knee that had withstood the rigours of learning to snowboard long enough for him and Gordy to become sufficiently proficient to venture out on the slopes without Osgood worrying about them.  “...we’ve got this.”

 

“Thanks…” Smiling at Max who was proceeding to go and put some more logs on the fire whilst Gordy went to park the food in the kitchen, Osgood tilted her head back slightly said, “...explain it to me then?”

 

“Ok…” Kate rested her chin on Osgood’s shoulder and tightened her hold around her waist, feeling a warmth that didn’t just come from the fire as they sat together, Kate propped up in the corner of the couch, Osgood leaning against her, their legs stretched out along its length as they tackled their annual treat, the Jumbo Christmas Cryptic Crossword.  “...you agree it’s an anagram of ‘china tea-sets’?”

 

“Yes, indicated by the word broken in the clue.  But what’s anaesthetics got to do with numbers?” asked Osgood, staring at the clue in frustration.  “Number broken in china tea-sets.”

 

“You’re reading number as in prime, odd, even…” began Kate, enjoying the fact that not only had she worked out the clue without seeing it in print because she had been too comfortable to go and get her glasses, but she had got an answer that Osgood  hadn’t already got and wasn’t immediately seeing once she knew the it either.

 

“Ordinal, integer, irrational, yes.”

 

“Numb,” said Max, standing up after he’d put the fire guard back in place, attracting Osgood’s attention.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Numb.  It’s not number as in prime, odd and even…” feeling a bit nervous suddenly, not ever tackling a cryptic crossword, he risked looking at his Mum who, out of Osgood’s line of vision, was giving him a confidence-boosting wink that made him smile, “...it’s numb-er, as in what makes something numb.  Anaesthetics.”  There was a pause as Max waited for Osgood’s reaction.

 

“Clever.  Very well done Max, I hadn’t seen that reading.”

 

“Thanks Os…” With an embarrassed shrug of his shoulder and little ducking nod of his head, Max quickly mumbled, “...I’ll go help Gord with the plates and stuff…” and, reminding the two women, who’d come to mean so much to him since the death of his parents, of his teenaged self, he made a dash for the kitchen.

 

“He hasn’t changed, has he?” asked Kate, watching him go.

 

“Not at home, no.  I keep expecting him to do that at the Tower…” admitted Osgood, putting down the folded newspaper section and pen, knowing they’d return to it at some point.

 

“I’m so proud when he doesn’t…” agreed Kate.

 

“You did so well, with both of them.”

 

“ _ We _ did well, do well, with both of them,” corrected Kate, sneaking a kiss or two along Osgood’s neck, before the two boys in question returned for the final tradition of their family Christmas.

 

“Mmm...stop it…” protested Osgood half-heartedly, leaning her head away from Kate’s all-too-accurate kisses.

 

“The boys will cope…” muttered Kate, not so easily dissuaded.

 

“You do remember you banned the Derren Brown cover, don’t you?” 

 

“No I didn’t…” disagreed Kate, renewing her efforts at distracting Osgood when she realised she was still managing to say a complete sentence, only to stop when her brain caught up with what that sentence actually was.  “...did I?”

 

“Yes.  You said…”

 

“... said I wanted some variety and no more illusionists….” Kate groaned, remembering the email she had written 364 days ago, “...and now it’s come back to haunt me…”

 

“You’re going to have to pay attention…” Moving out of instinct, Osgood simultaneously put one hand on her neck and the other on Kate’s mouth, “...to the television…” 

 

“I thought we’d play as a team?  Especially if I’ve got to actually work out the answers...”

 

“I’m feeling competitive.”

 

“What’s the prize then?”

 

“I’m sure we’ll think of something…” Before Osgood could suggest exactly what sort of ‘something’ that prize could be, Max and Gordy came back into the sitting room, carrying jugs of fruit juice and water (they’d all had quite enough to drink in the last 48 hours), bowls of prawn crackers and glasses.

 

“The rest is in the oven keeping warm… are you two going to keep hogging the couch?” asked Gordy, putting a bowl of prawn crackers in Osgood’s lap.

 

“Yes.” Osgood punctuated her declaration with a noisy crunch on a prawn cracker, “apple juice please Max.”

 

“Sure thing Os, sparkling water Mum?”

 

“Thanks…” Reaching round Osgood, Kate extracted a prawn cracker from the bowl she presumed Gordy had intended them to share and noisy crunched it next to her girlfriend’s ear.

 

“You better not do that during the programme… that might be considered cheating.”

 

“You not playing as a team Os?” asked Gordy, trying not to laugh when he saw his mother crunch her way even more loudly through another prawn cracker.

 

“No, I’m feeling competitive.  What programmes are we watching?  And who’s keeping score?  Thanks Max.”  Osgood accepted her apple juice with a smile.

 

“Channel 4’s Review of the Year,” explained Max, picking up the remote and starting to find the recordings he’d set earlier in the week.

 

“Is that the one sub-titled “‘Top 100 Headlines you won’t believe you’ve forgotten”?” asked Gordy, cramming a handful of prawn crackers noisily into his mouth.

 

“I told you his eating habits were inherited…” muttered Osgood pointedly as she was deafened by Kate’s next prawn cracker.

 

“Yes - doubt any of yours made the final cut Gord…” teased Max, pushing the coffee table away from the couch a little bit so it was easier for him to sit down on the floor between it and the couch, inadvertently obstructing Osgood’s view of the television again.

 

“What is it with you getting your arse in Os’s face today?” countered Gordy, spotting a piece of discarded advertising on the coffee table that he could use to keep score on, “and I’ll keep score.  Can you pass the pen Os?”  Dropping a couple of cushions on the floor, Gordy took the pen that Osgood passed him and sat down next to his brother, managing to steal the remote in the process.  “Ready Mum?”

 

“Who put you in charge?” muttered Max, only to realise that this was his opportunity to take control of the second bowl of prawn crackers.

 

“As I’ll ever be…” agreed Kate, turning towards the television, “...so, usual rules apply.  The judge’s decision is final, and I’m reminded that I finally remembered to send the email banning illusionists….”

 

“Is Derren Brown an illusionist?” asked Gordy, “I thought he was a mentalist…”

 

“He’s both,” declared Kate, issuing her first ‘judge’s decision’, “at least, for the purposes of the 2015 edition of ‘Truth or UNIT’ he is.”

 

“Those were my guaranteed points!” protested Max, or at least, that’s what they thought he said around his mouthful of prawn cracker.

 

“Five penalty points for not reading your emails Max.”

 

“But…”

 

“Stop digging Max, you’ll only make her worse…”

 

“Ten penalty points for being rude about the judge Os…” Wisely Osgood accepted her ‘penalty’ judgement from Kate quietly, knowing it was a fair handicap as she’d probably authorised the use of at least half the cover stories they’d had to release during the year, and certainly been involved in a few others.

 

“You playing Mum?” asked Gordy, marking up columns with their initials at the top, and recording Osgood’s and Max’s starting scores, trying to conceal his surprise - he couldn’t remember her playing ‘Truth or UNIT’ as a competitor since they’d stopped playing in teams when Max had transferred to UNIT a couple of years earlier.

 

“Yes.  Problem?” asked Kate mildly, having finished her latest, and this time quietly consumed, prawn cracker.

 

“What’s your penalty?”

 

“What do you mean Max?” Kate tried to look and sound innocent.  She didn’t succeed.

 

“Ten penalty points for being directly involved, five for being aware,” said Osgood, remembering the rules from previous years.  They, along with a few other more inventive ‘handicaps’ that were invented as the game went along served to level the playing field between Gordy, who knew only a little bit about what went on at UNIT but was a very intuitive guesser, and the others.  So whilst Gordy correctly guessing that Derren Brown attempting to break the world record for largest outdoor hypnotism by making people think they were seeing a 1960s police box in Trafalgar Square scored him 12 points, for Osgood and Kate it was only worth 2.  “And TWENTY penalty points for tickle attacks,” added Osgood pointedly, letting go of the bowl of prawn crackers in an attempt to try and catch Kate’s fingers.

 

“That applies to you too mate,” declared Gordy, looking warily at Max, who was even worse at trying to look innocent than Kate was, “especially on the tickling.”  Unlike his mother and brother, Gordy was extremely ticklish.

 

“If you’re quite finished…” prompted Kate, reinforcing her point with a gentle tap on Gordy’s head as Osgood gave Max a similar tap, both women taking advantage of the boys electing to use the couch as their backrest.

 

“Bring it on!” agreed Gordy, turning expectantly towards the television which showed the frozen image of the Channel 4 logo.

 

“It would help if you pressed play…” observed Osgood helpfully, knowing he had the remote, prompting Kate and Max to noisily chomp their way through a few more prawn crackers in an attempt not to laugh at Gordy’s embarrassment as he once again found the remote and finally pressed play...

  
  


* * *

 

 

“What time did you say we’re leaving for the Tower?” asked Osgood, raising her voice slightly so that Kate would hear her in the en suite bathroom.

 

“I didn’t…” Kate appeared in the doorway, foamy toothbrush in hand, “...but there should be a message on my phone…” She leant against the doorframe and continued brushing her teeth, watching as Osgood leaned over to Kate’s side of the bed and checked the phone.

 

“Jenkins is coming at 10.30.  I’ll let McGillop know.”  Osgood put Kate’s phone back on the table and, still lying diagonally across the pillows, finished off the text to their colleague and friend.

 

“Mgwillob?” Kate had forgotten about the toothbrush, only to quickly retreat into the bathroom before she spilt toothpaste on the bedroom carpet.

 

“McGillop?  I thought he was coming here…” With mouth toothpaste free, Kate turned out the bathroom light and headed for her side of the bed, making a second attempt at their conversation.

 

“He is… the boys had said come round ‘whenever’ apparently…” Osgood looked up at Kate as she put her phone next to Kate’s, “..are you waiting for an invitation?”

 

“A little room perhaps…” observed Kate pointedly, lifting the duvet and inspecting the small triangle of mattress between Osgood and the edge of the bed.  “And I can see McGillop not being a ‘whenever’ sort of planner.”

 

“You didn’t eat that much Chinese!” Rather than moving back onto her own side of the bed, Osgood stretched, reducing the space for Kate to try and slip into a little bit more. “His definition of ‘whenever’ was influenced by when we weren’t here.”

 

“But we know he and Oli are coming, we were there when they planned it.”  No matter how old the boys got, Kate would always find Sontaran defense strategies (which usually centred around charging with laser cannons) more understandable than the plans the boys made.  It was, to the mother in her, a continual source of amazement that Max managed to co-ordinate Troop’s operations so successfully or that Gordy ever filed a story on deadline.

 

“Apparently it’s one thing for his boss to know he plays video games, quite another for her to actually witness him being blown up in outer space,” explained Osgood, adding, “his words, not mine.”

 

“He does know that could be arranged?  For all three of them?” asked Kate, spying Osgood’s book in the covers and snagging it, her reading glasses for once perched on top of her head.

 

“Yes.  And that Oli is impressionable, even if he can’t focus on the screen properly and it’s Lego.”

 

“Lego?  I thought the boys were playing a Star Wars something at the moment?”  Kate didn’t really see the point of an xbox and had never tried playing a game, but Osgood had at least had a go once, if only to prove that she didn’t like it.

 

“Lego Star Wars Saga…it’s the Star Wars films, in Lego.  Did Max show you the pictures he took?”  On the basis that they never really watched television, and it meant that the boys visited for reasons other than to get their laundry done, neither Kate or Osgood minded them using their television to play their xbox games.

 

“Of the Lego kit we gave him for his birthday?  Yes… ”  Osgood hadn’t moved, so Kate was still stood by her side of the bed, looking intently at the pages of the book Osgood had been reading, clearly looking for something as she talked.

 

“It’s no excuse for not dusting though.”  Despite having their own perfectly decent flat half an hour away (it was Osgood’s, she was a benevolent landlady), their mother’s television and internet was apparently ‘better’ for ‘big’ xbox games and, at 26, even Kate had to agree that they were too old for her to be asking why they couldn’t ‘go play outside instead of those silly games.’  “Even if it is a Millennium Falcon.  In Lego.”

 

“I’ll have a word…” promised Kate, correctly picking up on her girlfriend’s concern.  “So, tell me about cotton exports in 1953?”

 

“Pardon?”  The subject change caught Osgood out.

 

“1953.”  Repeated Kate, holding up the paperback that Osgood had been carrying around in her duffle coat pocket all day, and had brought up to bed to read a bit more of.  “Cotton exports?”

 

“I’ve not read about them,” admitted Osgood, realising she was going to have to change her tactics slightly if she was going to get Kate into bed without having to retreat to her own side.

 

“No, you were reading about DNA discoveries…”

 

“And the logistics for the Coronation.” Unnoticed by Kate, Osgood had caught hold of the waistband of her pyjama trousers and was preparing for her ‘attack’.

 

“But you said...AAAAOOOOOH!”  Osgood managed to give a sharp enough yank on the pyjamas that Kate lost her balance slightly and tumbled forwards just enough that she had time to catch herself and avoid landing face first on the mattress by putting her hands down.  

 

Rather conveniently, this brought Kate’s face and neck within reach of Osgood, who confirmed her plan had worked with a well placed kiss, right where she’d been trying and failing to kiss Kate all day, in that particular spot that, after everything they’d experienced together or apart, allowed Osgood to hear her favourite sound.  

 

Kissing Kate half an inch higher or lower on her neck and the blonde hummed; kissing Kate half an inch to the left or right of the spot and she sighed.  Kissing Kate _on_ the spot and the sigh and hum combined to produce the most melodic, perfect interval between two notes that Osgood had ever heard.  It was, as far as Osgood was concerned, the sound that symbolised to her that, in their own little corner of space and time, everything that mattered to her most was well.

 

“You never read about cotton exports in 1953…” murmured Kate when she could finally process coherent thoughts and moved away from her lover just long enough to put the book and their glasses on her bedside table.

 

“I read about them 1957 last week…” Osgood shifted into a more comfortable position, happy to move now she had Kate lying down with her, “...it had historic data.”

 

“You…” Before Kate could find the word, Osgood had found that spot again, with unerring accuracy.  “Os….” Osgood smiled against Kate’s skin as she heard Kate’s hums form into her name, still rising and falling between those two notes, perfect notes that for Osgood’s ear could only be produced by Kate, and only from kissing  _ that  _ spot.  No other spot had the same result, and Osgood had checked, repeatedly.  “Os…”

 

“Mmm?”  Lying back on the pillows, helping Kate lie more comfortably on her, the duvet tangled over her back, Osgood looked at Kate with total focus, her eyes brighter and clearer than, now she saw them, Kate could remember seeing for what felt like a long, long time.

 

“Don’t ever change…” said Kate, suddenly realising what had been nagging at her, just out of reach, since their conversation on the park bench earlier.

 

“I don’t…”

 

“I know you’re going to tell me that’s not possible…” anticipated Kate, kissing her lover’s wrinkling nose with amusement, “...and I know you’d tell me exactly how you, and I, have both changed since we first met…” she rewarded Osgood’s willingness to hear her out by kissing the now unwrinkled nose again, “...but you know how I mean…” Kate watched, almost certain she could see her lover’s fantastic mind working through what she’d said, sorting through what she hadn’t said to find her real meaning, hitting on it with the same unerring accuracy she had at finding  _ that  _ spot, that Kate herself couldn’t touch, or point to despite it being somewhere on her own neck - somehow, it was as if it wasn’t her spot, wasn’t hers to reach, but instead was Osgood’s, the part of her that could only be found, truly found, by her lover, this wonderful, fascinating, uniquely brilliant, special woman who meant as much to her as her children.

 

“I’m me…”

 

“My Os…” agreed Kate, accepting the kiss and returning it with a kiss of her own.

 

“And you’re you.”

 

“For my faults…”

 

“You’re you…” repeated Osgood, her gaze clouding momentarily when Kate instinctively downplayed herself, “...you’re you…” she repeated, running her finger down Kate’s nose and over her lips, tracing her features that Osgood could always recall so perfectly in her dreams, “you’re you… for me…”  And once again, without needing to search for it, she claimed that spot with her lips, that place which meant Kate felt things that could never be recreated any other way, those feelings that made Kate hum and sigh and sing those notes that sounded so special and perfect, not just for Osgood, but also for Kate.

 

Because Kate knew what that sound, the sound of this moment of quiet, gentle, intimate love meant to Osgood, and therefore meant to her.

 

It was, quite simply, the sound of peace.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you! I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> This started as a very, very small idea - what would happen if Kate had to hold a baby. Out of that came the idea of them bumping into McGillop, and out of that came the realisation that I could share some of the 'headcanon' I'd developed for Kate and Osgood as I've been working on 'Code Word Classified: Gallifrey'.
> 
> I'm sure there's lots of references/things in here that I should disclaim or explain, but to keep it short I'll just note the following points:  
> \- Gordy Lethbridge-Stewart exists in canon but little is established, so this is pretty much entirely my own development  
> \- Max and 'the Doofus' exist is entirely my own development, influenced by trying to decrypt Kate's self-characterisation as 'divorced, mother-of-two' in Death of Heaven with no further Canon  
> \- Kate's limited canon backstory has been used as a frame on which to build my own theory for how she came to be at UNIT, along with Osgood, and her even more limited canon backstory.  
> \- McGillop's canon is not much better - his sister, brother-in-law, wife and three kids are all my own creation, as is Oli's caterpillar, although it's based on the brightly coloured squeaky toy I've been bashed in the nose with pretty much every small baby I've met.... google tells me it was probably a butterfly, but Oli was already too attached to his caterpillar, so, the rest, as they say, is fic....  
> \- I obviously don't own xbox or Lego or Star Wars or Channel 4 (a British TV network, like ITV (who do/did Downton) only... not)  
> \- Derren Brown was name-dropped in 'The Day of the Doctor' - I presume they had his consent - I am merely continuing in what I hope is recognised as the same spirit.  
> \- 'Number broken in china tea-sets' was a clue that appeared in the Times (quick) cryptic crossword during January 2016, and therefore originates with either the compiler or the newspaper, and not me. I was just proud I solved it.
> 
> As always, if there's anything else I've missed out, or you would like answering, please let me know. The characters and things you recognise are not mine, and have only been borrowed for a bit of daydreaming I wrote down for no profit.
> 
> And finally (I waited this long so no one would see her kick me), thank you darklioness82 who put up (though she claims it was a 'pleasure') with me rambling at her about this as I was writing it, and never once pointed out that in the keystrokes it took me to 'ask' her about Dr Who canon, I could have had google search the internet several times over. Thank you!


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